Advent & Christmas Wrap-up!

These past weeks have FLOWN by - I can't believe that Advent has come and gone.  Luckily, Christmas is a season and we still have some time to celebrate!  Here are some pictures of what's been happening around our house.

Our Elf on the Shelf - this may just be one of my favorite traditions during the Advent season. With teenage girls in the house, it was so much fun to see what our elf would be doing each morning! Here are a few of my favorites.

Potato Sack Race

Drinking some syrup!

Spiderman inspiration

And let's keep rolling with the super hero theme...Superman!

And our elf playing a little Scrabble with his friends.

Todd took the big kids to the new Star Wars movie and brought home movie theater popcorn - Benjamin was in heaven!

And later that same afternoon, Esther and Eleanor were playing "jump off the couch and land on your hands" (yeah, that was the name of their game).  Surprise, surprise....yep, Esther broke her elbow. Lucky for her she has a fabulous big sister (thank you Haley!) who is sleeping next to her to help her in the middle of the night and takes care of her throughout the day.  She'll go in to see the orthopedic doctor this week who will re-xray to determine what to do next.

Christmas Eve dinner is always malts and pizza for our family.  The kids love it and it is super easy - win, win if you ask me!  The evening is spent in jammies (their first gift from mom and dad) and we open presents after supper.

Christmas Day begins with Mass.  Then we have a brunch and open up gifts from Santa/stocking stuffers.  The rest of the day is very low-key and even had nap time for me!  After dinner, we all watched Elf and ate Christmas cookies.  What a wonderful day we all had!

The tree with the Santa gifts underneath.

This is our first Christmas in our new house.  We don't have a mantle, so we had to get creative about where to hang the stockings.  I think this worked out alright.

Ahhh...teenagers who clean the kitchen. Merry Christmas to me! :-)

Benjamin is a Jenga master!

Playing Apples to Apples Bible edition while waiting for supper to get done.

Ham, cheesy potatoes, brocolli/rice, buns, "kid wine"...yum!

There are a ton of photos on the other camera, but I am too tired to get to them.  Perhaps another time?  

God Bless!

Heather :-)

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas - from our family, to yours!

God Bless!

Heather :-)

The Reason for the Season - Christmas Flash Mob

I hope that you'll take a moment today to take a peek at this Christmas flash mob.  It it such a wonderful testimony to how any person can use his or her talents (this happens to be the gift of voice) in a public arena to give glory and praise to God.

God Bless!

Heather :-)

7 Quick Takes - A Few of My Favorite Christmas Things

I had such grand ambitions of posting about our Advent and Christmas traditions only to fall short on time and energy.  So, I've chosen the 7 Quick Takes route and will give you the much abridged version which will do just fine!

(1) Heirloom Tree Skirt

I found this idea many years back in a Family Fun magazine.  When I was pregnant with Haley during Advent of 2001, I made a simple tree skirt out of velvet.  It was kind of spendy, but I figured we'd have it for a long time and used a coupon to soften the blow.  I got started with a hand print of Madeline (17 months) and Haley (a couple days old) for the first year's "entry".  I've continued all the way around in the subsequent years and this year had to begin tier two.  We all enjoy this heirloom tree skirt.  It is so much fun to see how our family has grown through the years.

The skirt around the tree.

I trace each child's hand, cut it out, and trace around it with gold metallic fabric paint.  The cookie cutter is traced onto white felt and then I write the year on it and stuck it on with tacky glue.

Esther and Eleanor seeing how their current hand size compares to last year.

(2) Children's Ornament Collection

Each year we make a special trip to the store for the children to choose an ornament that tells something about them that happened in the past year.  The younger kids almost always choose a character that they enjoy reading about or watching on television.  However, the older children really put some thought into it.

Joseph chose a golf cart because this was the first year he drove (and crashed...oops!) a golf cart.  Lillian has developed a knack for photography and even talked Grandma into letting her have one of her old cameras to snap photos.

When the children leave home and have their first official Christmas with their own tree, we'll pass along all of their ornaments that they've collected over the years.  I think back to my and Todd's first Christmas tree covered in tinsel and colored balls purchased at Target...wouldn't it have been nice to have a tree filled with memories instead?!

(3) Advent Family Reading

Last year, we thoroughly enjoyed reading Jotham's Journey.  This year, we picked up Tabitha's Travels and it was fabulous.  The daily reading time is short and very do-able.  We even brought the book along on our family vacation as the children can hardly wait to read the daily installment of the story.

(4) Home Made Gifts

Teacher gifts can be a tricky order to fill.  You want to make it something nice that will be used and appreciated, but nothing that is too spendy or over the top.  Luckily, our family enjoys making gifts. This year, we made St. Nicholas Hot Chocolate mix (from Catholic Cuisine) and have gotten nothing but rave reviews from all who received a canister from one of the children.  We even mixed up an extra batch for our family.  It is yummy!

I found canisters at the Dollar Store and attached simple tags with mixing directions.

(5) Christmas Eve Pizza and Malts

Our first few Christmases I felt obligated to make something traditional...turkey, ham...something that took a long time to bake, children typically don't enjoy,  and created an exorbitant amount of leftovers.  Then, one year, it dawned on me.  Why not have something easy that makes everyone happy?  Our tradition has been for the past few years to have pizza and malts on Christmas Eve.  We don't have any family who joins us for Christmas, so it's only the 8 of us who need to be happy.  It is super easy (makes me happy!) and who doesn't like pizza and malts (makes the kids happy!)?  And when mom and the kids are happy, it's only logical that papa bear is happy too!

(6) Christmas Day Chinese Take-out

This year we extended this to Christmas Day as well.  The local Chinese buffet advertised that they would be open on Christmas Day and it got me thinking.  I asked the family what they would think about take-out for Christmas Day and they all jumped on the bandwagon. I made the rice in our rice cooker at home to save money.  This went over well and I think we'll be doing it again next year!

(7) Christmas Eve Mass

Madeline was assigned as an altar server at the 10:30 pm Mass on Christmas Eve.  I have to admit that I was a little frightened about how it would go with the littles so far past their bedtime.  Getting out of present mode and into church mode was a bit challenging, but it all worked out.  The Mass was absolutely beautiful and incredibly prayerful.  I think this may be another new tradition for us!

When we got home, each of the children had a new pair of pj's on their beds.  They slipped into them and then were allowed to keep them on all Christmas Day, which if you know me at all, this is so NOT what I am all about.  But, I must admit, the children really enjoyed it and it will probably catch on as something we do on Christmas Day.

There you have it...our Advent and Christmas celebrations in a nutshell.  I have enjoyed reading about all of your celebrations and now feel that I have added just a bit to the discussion!

God Bless!

Heather :-)

Christmas Eve 2010

This is a day that we look forward to all year long.  It's a day of complete rest and relaxation (although I did fit in some vacuuming and mopping the floors, but that makes me happy!)  Our tradition is to go to Mass on Christmas morning, so the entire day is spent at home.

The children woke up (early of course, on the day that they could sleep in!) and exchanged presents with each other.  They really put a lot of thought and effort into finding/recycling/buying gifts for each other that they knew would be appreciated.  It is fun to watch them putting so much thought and care into their siblings!

Our tradition is to keep all gift put away until Christmas Eve morning.  So, this morning we brought all of the gifts up from the storage closet and put them under the tree.  By the time you get gifts from aunts, uncles, grandparents and parents for 6 kids, it really adds up!

We open gifts throughout the day and let the children play with them as they get opened.  One thing that kept them all busy for a while was putting change into their new banks that an aunt and uncle sent them.  Todd commented, "Next time we need some quiet, let's give them each a handful of change to put in their banks!"

Todd and I bought a new Keurig coffee maker with the money from our parents.  I'm not much of a coffee drinker, but have found a few tasty drinks that I enjoy.  Todd has perfected a chocolate coffee drink that he claims is better than anything he could buy at a coffee shop.

Esther didn't really understand what all of the excitement was about and was content to sit in my lap and read books.

Here are a few highlights from the rest of the day.

Eleanor bouncing on the exercise trampoline

Haley with a REAL American girl doll

Joseph in Lego heaven



Madeline with her penguin pillow pet



Lillian playing a learning/video game

And of course, the reason we're celebrating today...baby Jesus got put into the nativity sets on top of our fireplace just before we headed up for bed.

The kids are all in tucked in and most of them are sleeping.  We'll be up early for a breakfast of monkey bread which is our special celebration breakfast reserved for birthdays - Happy Birthday Jesus!

God Bless!

Heather :-)

Kraft Family Christmas Traditions

There are a few things that we do each year that make it "feel" like it is Christmas time around the house.  The first one is our tree skirt.  After the birth of our second child 9 years ago, I saw an idea for an heirloom/personalized Christmas tree skirt in Family Fun magazine and decided to give it a try.  I chose to use red velvet and am happy with the choice.  I glued gold rick-rack around the edge for a little extra decoration and then got started. 

The first year, there were only the two children.  Madeline was 1 1/2 and Haley was only a few days old.  I painted Madeline's hand and Haley's foot (she was much to little to keep her hand open to make a print!) with gold fabric paint and put their prints on the skirt.  I continued this technique for the first few years, and then changed to just outlining each child's hand or foot. 

It is so much fun (and a little sentimental) to look at the skirt each year.  It just so happens that there is a baby foot every other year.  Joseph said this morning, "I wonder what we'll name our baby next year?"  It is neat for the children to put their hands onto past year's hand prints and see how much they've grown.  I must admit, that it is a bit of a hassle to get it done each year (truth be told, I just got this year's prints on the skirt last night....shhhhh...don't tell anyone!) but when I get it done, it really makes me happy that I did it!

4 of the prints are done with 2 more paper hands
waiting to be traced.  The cookie cutter is holding the
place where the white felt year marker will be glued down.

Gold fabric paint purchased at JoAnn's that I use
to trace the children's hands on to the tree skirt.

This year's finished prints on the skirt under the tree.



The finished skirt under the tree.

The first Christmas that Todd and I were married, we went to Target and bought a few boxes of glass bulbs to decorate our tree.  There isn't anything wrong with that, but it just seemed so impersonal.  I decided that it would be great for our children to have a "starter kit" of ornaments that they could take with them when they left home.  So, each year, we give them an ornament that is somehow representative of something that child did that particular year. 

Madeline - LOVES piano and is playing beautifully
Haley - quit piano and started guitar this year
Joseph - LOVES playing  golf with dad in the summer
Lillian - learned to read this year...yah-hoo!
Eleanor - Dora...books, movies, dolls...need I say more?!
Esther - our sweet little angel girl!

We have a great time decorating the tree each year, remembering when they received each of their ornaments.  It is fun to listen to them tell stories about "when I was little...." and remember the story that goes along with each of their ornaments.

Another tradition we have is playing the game "To Bethlehem" from Familyman Ministries.  The goal of the game is to be the first player to get to Bethlehem with much singing, laughing and fun along the way.

Todd with a towel on his head and the children all giving shoulder
 rubs to the person to their right..they were roaring with laughter!

We are again reading Jotham's Journey this year as part of our Advent preparation.  We read it last year, and the children (and Todd and I!) all loved it.  I think that we may have to get one of the other books in the series for Advent next year just to mix it up a bit.

With just a few days remaining until Christmas, I hope that you are all ready to celebrate the birth of our Savior.  The excitement in our house is at fever pitch and it is hard to get the children to concentrate on anything....things are just as they should be!

God Bless!

Heather :-)