Say hello to my new favorite holiday cocktail!
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Decadent and delicious, this treat is easy to make and even easier to drink! It also pairs perfectly with this homemade chocolate sauce. It only takes a few minutes to whip up, and is free of all the nasty additives found in the store bought sauce.
Our advent calendar usually yields many opportunities for us to gather with loved ones, but this year the holiday season is looking pretty different in that regard. Our already tight bubble has tightened to just a very few. It is hard, but we firmly believe the caution will pay off in the long term. ⠀
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Therefore, we are VERY grateful to have had the opportunity to share a festive evening at the cottage with a few of our favorite bubble people: Nana and Papa! The Christmas lights were twinkling, our new fireplace was ablaze, and together we crafted the most beautiful stained glass collage angels by Art Camp Studio. The kiddos loved painting alongside Nana and Papa, and they were absolutely tickled when they saw their finished angels on the window the next day. We will definitely create more of these beauties this season— I am thinking they would make gorgeous greeting cards! Arielle, of Art Camp, couldn’t be lovelier, and she shares the most INCREDIBLE craft ideas! This holiday season, give yourself the gift of following along with her!
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I’ll admit it, I wasn’t even finished making the kids DIY Jack-O-Lantern jammies when I started dreaming up ideas for winter designs. I just cannot help myself!
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After a bunch of mulling, I decided to have the them make snowflakes. I figured the design would be simple enough for Cole to draw, and unlike holiday jammies, they would be fitting for the whole winter season.
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The process was very similar to our last DIY Jammies project. I selected these beautiful blue pajama sets from Primary, had the kids draw snowflakes, snapped photos of their best drawings with my phone, loaded it into my Silhouette software and cut them out of white and sparkly white heat transfer vinyl. I then cut out each individual snowflake so that I could arrange (and rearrange) them directly on the tops before ironing.
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Word to the wise, if you wish to attempt this project, it is best suited for kiddos who are more independent artists or who follow directions well. It was a bit of a gong-show trying to get Cole to draw his snowflakes. He would get halfway through, then completely go off on a tangent drawing scribbles. “Look! Dat’s the ocean! Dat’s Jack Skellington. And dose are his arms!” Finally, I drew two dots on the paper and asked Cole to connect them with a line. Then I drew more dots and asked him to connect those. Eventually he had created the six arms of the snowflake. I also asked him to draw circles. I attached his circle drawings to the ends of the snowflake arms in my Silhouette software— that was far easier than trying to get him to draw it all!
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Still, all of those design challenges were 100% worth it once I revealed the finished jammies to Isla and Cole and saw their faces light up! They could not wait to wear them and proudly pointed out their favorite snowflakes to one another. I have no doubt we are going to get a lot of great use out of these darling keepsake jammies this winter!
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And along the lines of DIY snowflake crafts, have you seen the gorgeous necklaces we had made using Isla’s snowflake drawings last year?
Every year we kick off our advent activities with new holiday and winter books, so that we can maximize our time with them. I intend to get the kids each one new story, but that number always blossoms— I just cannot turn down a beautiful book! I am excited to share this year’s titles. They are each so wonderful, fascinating, nostalgic and darling in their own way.
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Before we dive into the books, I also thought I’d share how we manage our advent activity calendar:
In late November (or frantically on the morning of December 1) we cut out and decorate paper ornaments with the kids. Then we write each activity on a paper ornament. Then every day we hide the ornament featuring the day’s activity somewhere in the house. We write a clue about where to find the ornament on a little piece of paper that we roll up and tuck into the coordinating advent calendar drawer. Once the kids find the paper ornament, we begin our advent activity!
We have the ornament AND the clue for a few reasons: it gives Isla extra reading practice, it’s fun for the kids to go on a mini scavenger hunt each day, and we display the ornaments on the kids Connection Tree, but they are too large for the advent calendar drawers and we don’t want to fold them, so we needed a work-around. Don’t you just love when problem solving leads to an even more fun outcome?! We realize our method has a few extra steps, but we enjoy the creative process of it all!
Aaaand, back to the books!
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A Homemade Together Christmas. The sweetest, most perfect-for-us Christmas story there ever was! The End. But seriously, if you appreciate homemade gifts and the thoughtful process behind them, this is the perfect book! We also love Maryann’s seasonal series: Let it Snow, Let it Rain, Let in Shine, and Let it Fall.
Winter Sleep: A Hibernation Story. Our kiddos love spending time with my mom in her garden, so this book immediately tugged at my heartstrings. This sweet story features a child following his grandmother outside in familiar spaces, while learning how the Earth prepares for winter.
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Walk This World At Christmastime. A busy and beautiful lift-the-flap book that highlights Christmas and winter traditions all over the world. Having experienced so many other fascinating traditions during our years abroad, I was eager to learn more alongside our kids!
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Dear Santa, Love, Rachel Rosenstein. Continuing in the vein of helping our children learn about different traditions, beliefs, and cultures, I thought this book was simply darling! It follows along with Rachel, a girl who is Jewish but loves the festive traditions of Christmas. It is a heartfelt and honest story that provides great opportunities for conversations about how people celebrate the holidays.
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Santa’s Story. With darling illustrations and a sweet and simple story line, this book reinforces our love of tradition and reading!
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Construction Site on Christmas Night. We just love these Construction Site books! The emphasis on this story is giving, and the rhymes are so wonderfully playful!
You can find more of our favorite Christmas books HERE.
Have you found any wonderful new holiday books this year? Please share! We are always eager to open our hearts and home to wonderful stories.
One of the biggest surprises we have experienced while living at the cottage is discovering that the leaves don’t go through a brilliant change along the coast. Instead, everything just suddenly appears mottled and brown or bare. I will admit the lack of color was a big disappointment for this fall-loving family, so you can imagine how thrilled we were to return to my mom’s neighborhood in mid-November and find the trees an absolute riot of reds, oranges, and yellows! One morning we enjoyed a long leaf walk, stopping at all our favorite spots to admire, collect, and jump in every colorful pile!
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We collected bags full of colorful leaves, and pressed them as soon as we returned from our walk. About a week later we used our favorites to create beautiful wreaths! Each of the kiddos made their own, and then Isla and I made one together while Cole napped. I just love sneaking in a little quiet mother-daughter crafting time with her!
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To make your own pressed leaf wreath you will need:
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I just adore these leaf wreaths! They are so simple, and the finished products are wonderfully vibrant and cheerful. You can see our pressed leaf wreaths from last year HERE. And if you’d really like to go back in time, you can see when we first made these wreaths for Isla’s third birthday party. It was a little collector theme (her idea) and my favorite party ever!
