crispy rice folks

For the 4th day of advent, our activity for together time was creating snowmen out of rice cereal.  We'd prefer to make real snowmen, but mother nature hasn't been cooperating. Fortunately,  this turned out to be a simple project that was also a lot off creative fun.

I made the standard crispy rice treats, then the kids covered their hands in LOTS of butter  and went to town making different kinds of "men" and creatures.

    Pierre, and his pet sheep Shaun.

We used the following items for decorations:
+ hats - chocolate sandwich cookies & marshmallows dipped in melted chocolate chips
+ buttons & eyes - mini chocolate chips  (nerds would be cute for a little more color)
+ scarves & mittens - fruit roll-up/tape (I only bought red, but there were many fun colors to choose from)
+ nose - marzipan (& food coloring)
+ arms - toothpicks (pretzel sticks were my original plan...but I forgot them while shopping)

    Edmund out for a stroll with his friend Pierre, who seems to be a bit tipsy.   Perhaps he indulged in
    the egg nog a bit too much!


Here's the complete collection of all our folks.  

    ...lots of fun, super cute, very tasty!

Advent 2012

Here's the advent calendar I put together for Christmas 2012.  Last year's advent calendar was fun, but it was just about receiving gifts.  I was very inspired by this calendar, and decided to make an effort to minimize the material aspect of Christmas.

Within each envelope there is a small card with that day's "gift".  I didn't completely get rid of material items, there are still a couple of days on which the kids will receive a small gift or treat.  The remaining days have activities to do together as a family or for others in our community.

Some of the activities include:
+ Watching Christmas movies together
+ Going ice skating
+ Christmas caroling at a rest home
+ Making gingerbread houses
+ Making winter bird feeders
+ Going bowling
+ Making fleece hats for needy kids
+ Delivering toys to Toys for Tots
+ Pancakes for dinner
+ Making candy
+ Looking at Christmas lights

The calendar itself was put together with small craft envelopes I found at Michaels, and washi tape from Target.  I printed out the numbers on adhesive paper and adhered them to the front of each envelope.  Quick & simple...which is what I need at this busy time of year!