Last-minute Christmas activities

My advent calendar has completely fallen apart.  Not literally -- the calendar itself is great!  But doing something every day has just ker-plopped.  Maybe it's because I'm getting sick.  Maybe it's because toddler-hood is so unpredictable.  If Megan's mood swings one way or the other I'm either cancelling an activity or scrambling to get it out because it's a good time.  Well, we'll try again next year.  But we have done some fun things.

This first one is from Family Fun magazine -- of course.  Love that thing.  We made Christmas trees!  It was a simple craft to cut and glue Popsicle sticks into a tree (my job), paint them green, and glue sequins on (Megan's job).  Her attention span just doesn't last too long and I usually end up finishing for her while she finds something else to do.  Like throw sequins all over my kitchen floor.  By the way, have I told you how much I love my kitchen?  We have a nice big space in the middle that we can spread out and paint, glue, everything.  I can watch Abby playing on the carpet in the living room and keep the mess fairly well contained!  It's fabulous!

Today we made chocolate pretzels.  A few weeks back our Ward Young Women left a bag of goodies on our doorstep and that included some really delicious pretzel sticks.  Chopper and I have now been craving for weeks.  We who knew that it was the treat of the year -- I haven't been able to find pretzel rods to save my life!  So I got smaller sticks (not the itty bitty ones -- they're kind've in between) and melted milk chocolate chips to dip them in.  Megan's job was to sprinkle.  And she did well for about 37 seconds and then whoops!  There's a sprinkle stuck to her hand that needs to be licked off, and a few on the table, and one on her chair and then, well, there's a whole bowl of them right here so why not?  She definitely had a good time.

 They turned out to be a really good size for her (and the rest of us of course) to eat.  I think the large rods would've just been too big. 

Our weather has been really up and down with the past 2 days about 80 degrees.  Yup, you read that right.  I can't quite get used to it and I confess that I am wishing for a white Christmas, but in general, I don't miss the snow.

  I love this picture -- it is just too sweet!

 Abby loves her exer-saucer too -- in small quantities.  It's been really nice to keep her entertained while I do dishes or work on dinner.  It's funny though -- Megan never liked it because all she could (or would) do was sit and face once direction.  Abby stands and spins and chews on toys.  It's the best thing in the world to her!