Christmas 2012 Wrap-up

As you may have guessed from my lack of blog posts, we've been away on vacation for the past two weeks.  The kids had a wonderful Christmas, but we're all happy to have our own beds back.  Here's a little recap of some of the holiday activities we did..

I got a gingerbread house kit this year, and the twins (3) had a blast building and decorating it.  As a bonus, it's a fantastic fine-motor activity, as well..

We made a lot of paper crafts over vacation with daily sessions of cutting, gluing, and drawing.  One of my favorites was teaching the girls to make paper chains.  L really understood the process and worked on her chain with so much focus. 

The craft above has nothing to do with Christmas, but the kids really enjoyed the colored tape that I picked up for them on a whim.  They didn't only use it for 2-dimensional art on paper, but they also made their own ornaments, jewelery, and various accessories for their dolls with this tape (I'll have to get another set and then I'll take more pictures of their creations).

We got quite a bit of snow, and the twins enjoyed sledding for the first time.  Wimpy Mommy got to stay in the warm house with Baby H.  It made me smile looking through the window and seeing what a wonderful time the kiddos were having sledding down the hill and then carrying their sleds back for hours (it was a great way to wear them out, too!).

Before we left for vacation, I made the girls some new activities for the feltboard (I'll share the others later).  L especially enjoyed making these Christmas trees and decorating them.

I also found $1 felt stockings at Target, and the kids glued felt shapes onto them..

I had a lot more Christmas activities planned than we ended up having time for, but it was nice to just relax and let the kids play rather than trying to fit in as many things as possible.  Yesterday when we got home and went grocery shopping, L told me that she misses all the "fun family stuff" we did together for Christmas. 

(E showing her little brother some love)