Days of December

Here are our memories of December 2016. Every day I'll add some picture or a story of the day. A nice memory to look back on. Some activities are in English some are in Hungarian.

1st Dec

Our advent calendar is on

 2nd Dec

Activity from the advent calendar: a nutcracker puzzle. Of course we read the story too.

3rd Dec

Gingerbread party with our Hungarian friends

 4th Dec

Auchan shopping before Christmas. We got Auchan stickers and we made a good use of them.

Auchan Christmas tree

New play mats for Baby L. (E. put them together for her little sister)

5th Dec

Merry-go-round at the advent market with E.'s best friend. It was really chilly.

And waiting for St. Nicholas (Santa) to come. E. cleaned Baby Sis's little shoes.

6th Dec

Opening loads of presents in the morning.

7th Dec

St. Nicholas (Santa) came to I.-Grandma too.

8th Dec

E. made a Christmas tree out of old number stickers. (I wrote numbers on a sheet and she had to put the right stickers on them. She gave it up half way, but I encouraged her to finish it.)

We walked the dog with E. and met a blind lady with her guide dog, Cloud. The 2 dogs were playing and E. was over the moon, running around, calling the dogs and giving them treats.

9th Dec

E. got a new winter jacket and we went to the playground. L. fell asleep in the pushchair and there was some fun Mommy-and-big-daughter time.

E. opened the advent calendar with Daddy. They made a door wreath activity together.

10th Dec

We went ice-skating in the morning but after 5 minutes E. changed her mind and didn't want to ice-skate any longer.

The afternoon was about playing together and it was lots of fun. E. is getting better and better at Dobble:

The girls had a bath together for the first time :) (no pictures of it... 😛 )

11th Dec

Our pastor's wife organised gingerbread decoration for the kids in the morning. We took some of our leftover decor pens and beads.

We had a board game afternoon. First, we played a little Dobble again, then E. found out a Fruit board game. You can read about how to play it in the instructions. Everything was her idea. I just drew the fruit. Baby Sis joined in... all she wanted to do was to eat the die.

It's hard to read the instructions, so here they are: flower - throw again, x - miss a turn, a man - jump over, a fruit - name the fruit.

12th Dec

With my cleaning lady we tidied the kitchen cupboards and I gave away a lot of tea canisters and some mugs.

13th Dec

Helen Doron English session with L.

14th Dec

Not a very Christmassy art project, but these swans were E.'s own idea and she made the one on the left all by herself. Then I needed to follow her instruction and make a Daddy swan (on the right).

15th Dec

E. was at the grandparents and I managed to prepare for Christmas. Shopping and gift-wrapping is almost done.

16th Dec

Christmassy domino game

We made a home-made Christmas present: nuts and dried fruit in a jar with honey. (In this blog post you can read about it in more detail - coming soon)

Our nanny, V.  was here today and E. enjoyed her time with V. that she wanted her to stay for bath-time  😜

The girls have been enjoying their bath together so much.

17th Dec

Grandpa came and put on these 2 display bookshelves. E. wasn't much interested as her favourite books are in her room next to her bed, but L. really enjoyed packing the books down and having a look at them.

18th Dec

We did some Christmassy craft. Santa's hat out of popsicle sticks and cotton balls.
At the beginning E. was enthusiastic, then we could hardly finish it. This was the day when the Angels stopped bringing her activities and fun tasks in the advent calendar. We hadn't opened any of them since 12 Dec. E. didn't want to... it took me a week to let go. 😩

19th Dec

We made Christmas tree ornaments as presents for 3 of our friends.

Then in the afternoon my best friend, B. (who talks to the kids in English only) came and we had a pre-Christmas celebration. E. got bath crayons as a present.

20th Dec

I bought a lovely teapot set for L. She loves when we sing I'm a little teapot at the breakfast table every day.

21st Dec

E. and I selected some toys that she doesn't like to play with any more and we offered it to a family where there won't be presents under the tree for the kids.

22nd Dec

No matter how hard I look for this day in my notes I find   nothing 😕

23rd Dec

I selected the toys and put away 2 small and 1 big IKEA box of them before the Christmas presents (and Baby Sis's birthday presents) arrive.

24th Dec

Christmas Eve 
According to our traditions the Angels bring the decorated Christmas tree, then Baby jesus puts the presents under the tree. With bells they signal when everything is ready. We opened the presents and played a lot.

25th Dec

We celebrated Christmas at my Mom's

26th Dec

We celebrated Christmas at my mother-in-law's.

27th Dec

Chilling out and playing... not with the new toys though...

E.'s all time favourite: Water Friends

28th Dec

E. and L.'s godparents and their kid came over to celebrate Christmas together.

29th Dec

We celebrated L.'s first birthday

30th Dec

I wrote an article about the present galore at this time of the year. The article is in Hungarian and published on the first week of 2017.

31st Dec

We were invited to a house party to celebrate the new year. We made some chocolate balls with coconut flakes for the "party".

That was all our December. Next year we might be doing it paper-based with the girls.

Advent Calendar Activities Day 21-24

I know it's February, but only by now have I managed to finish the last post about our advent activities of 2015. It's hard to find time to work on the blog next to two kids.

So here comes some Christmassy and snowy projects:

1. Count snowflakes
   
   I found this easy snowflake counting activity on a website I've been returning to a lot lately: Playdough to Plato
   
   I printed and laminated the snow scene cards. I gave E. a lot of snowflakes (I had different kinds at home, like felt, Styrofoam or shiny plastic)
   
   I thought putting the right number of snowflakes on the mat as it is shown would be way too easy for E. so I sneaked in some skip counting in the activity. I gave her the card with only the even numbers on - one at a time (2, 4, 6, 8, 10)
   
   At the beginning she didn't understand why, but after having finished with card 6 she asked for card 8. So I knew immediately she understood what we were doing.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   After the activity she played a little more with the snowflakes. She grouped them according to their sizes, then made some patterns with the help of them.
   
   
2.  Body swap
   
   I prepared this activity last year but she didn't enjoy it so much. This year it wasn't a hit either.
   
   I took the idea from itsybitsyfun.com. If you click on the link you'll find the printable for free. You just need to print and cut out the body parts and give them to your child to make the snowman, the elf, the reindeer, and Santa. If your child enjoys this kind of activity (mine does not) you can build funny bodies, like one with a Santa head but a reindeer body and elf legs.
   
   
   
3. Make a nativity scene
   
   When E. was 1,5 years old I made an advent calendar for her in which she found little farm animals every day and, as we were getting closer to the 24th, also some angels and the Holy Family. On the 24th we made the whole scene.
   
   

   

   November 2013 

   
   
   
   The base I made out of a chocolate box. I glued a brown sheet of felt on it added some shiny felt stars. This is what we called the stable and this is where we placed all the animals one by one every day.
   
   This year she got all the animals and angels, a Christmas tree too (not so authentic, eh?) to make the scene herself. (Although it was Christmas time, she  insisted on wearing her Halloween Jack-o-lantern costume)
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Christmas workout
   
   As I knew the 24th would be very busy time for us, parents, I prepared something dynamic for E. to run around and drain her Christmas excitement with one of her grandmas.
   
   I printed the Christmas workout cards and the fun could began. I couldn't take photos as I was busy with the food and decoration for the evening. But as I heard it E. had a good time.
   
   

   

   http://www.toddlerapproved.com

   Join us next year too. I'm sure there will be some repetition of these activities but I'll find out some new ones too.
   
   Have a look at the other advent activities:
   
   Advent Calendar Activities Day 1-6
   
   
   
   
   Advent Calendar Activities Day 7-13
   
   
   
   
   Advent Calendar Activities Day 14-20