New Years with the VDV Four

This year for New Year's I wanted to start another tradition. We are a crafty bunch, so I thought it would be fun to make our own party hats. I just cut out a cone from sparkly card stock and then glued it together (link for a template). Everyone got to decorate their own by painting on mod podge and then sprinkling with glitter. Then we placed a little sparkly pom pom on top and stapled a piece of elastic on the bottom. Bug was very proud of his!

A New Year's Eve tradition that I adopted from my childhood was a fondue to celebrate the end of the year. Bug especially loves the process of cooking his own food now, so it has been an activity we have done the last few years. This year we made the dinner process extra special by having sparklers and confetti poppers. No better way to ring in the new year than with your loved ones (especially the little ones)!

VDV Four Advent Calendar 2013

Here it is, the whole list of our Christmas 2013 Advent activities. Each activity is linked to the blog post corresponding with the day. Some of our activities are pretty self explanatory with the picture and name; however, any activity that requires a bit more explanation will be found in further detail with the link attached.

This is our new Advent Calendar I made this year. The details on how I made it will be found in the day 1 blog post.

Also, this was so successful this year because of my extensive planning. Last year, I started this tradition; however, I was on maternity leave so I had more home time than I did this year. I knew that I wanted to continue this fun Christmas list of activities, and with my return to shift work, it was going to be difficult. Starting in September, I started organizing and collecting the items I would need for our Advent Days. The days that required paint, craft supplies, etc, I organized bags with everything I would need to complete the daily activity. This was really helpful on the days I worked, as I wouldn't have to come home and search for items. 

Our list:

1. Decorate our Tree

2. Make a Christmas Wreath

3. Write a Letter to Santa

4. Decorating the Boys Rooms

5. Baking Santa Hat Cupcakes

6. Food Bank Run

7. Glitter Pine Cones

8. Colour Christmas Pictures

9. Decorate Craft Christmas Tree

10. Water Gun Snow Painting

11. Christmas Tree Waffles for Supper

12. Skating

13. Go See Santa and Give Away 3 Gifts

14. Baking Christmas Cookies

15. Ring and Run

16. Snowman Hot Chocolate Bath

17. Making Beaded Candy Canes

18. You've Been Jingled

19. Make Candy Cane Reindeer

20. Snowman Ice Cream

21. Make Christmas Ornaments

22. Make Homemade Lollipops

23. Go Sledding

24. Christmas Movie Night

25. Open Presents

There you have it. Our fun filled Advent days. I'm looking forward to next year's Calendar!

Here is the VDV Four Advent Days 2012

VDV Four Advent Day 25: Open Presents

The title of this blog post is quite obvious, it's Christmas day, so open presents was our activity! The boys woke up to a mess by the fire place, with the cookies gone and Santa's footprints in some snow he accidentally brought into the house (I sprinkled some icing sugar through a sieve so it looked less clumpy, and then took Daddy VDV's boots to leave imprints in our "snow"). When Bug saw this, he said "Oh no, Santa made a BIG mess.

Next, we sat around our tree, opening up our Christmas presents. It was a wonderful family morning.

That concludes the VDV Advent Days for 2013. As much as I enjoyed this, I was happy it had come to an end for the year. Despite the chaos and sometimes stress of this calendar, the boys loved it, which in turn made us love it. So it will continue to be a family tradition. As crazy and type 'A' as it was to have everything organized by November, it made the whole process run smoothly...I may or may not already have my list of activities written down for next year. Haha...now on to some more VDV fun for 2014!

VDV Four Advent Day 24: Christmas Movie Night

Due to my shift work schedule, I had to work a 12 hour day today. But all day I looked forward to our family evening of cuddling in new pajamas and watching a Christmas movie. Both boys got a pair of new Christmas jammies, and a Christmas book and movie. Bug wanted a new blanket for Christmas (the one I made him previously was too small for my growing tot) and I had yet to make Bear one, so their Christmas Eve present also consisted of one of those knotted fleece blankets (I love how easy they are to make). Our movie this year was the original The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, and our book was "Bear Stays up for Christmas" (which only seemed fitting considering our youngest's nickname). 

After, we put out our Christmas cookies and milk for Santa and made some reindeer food by placing 1/2 cup of rolled oats and 2 tbsps of Christmas sprinkles in a bag. Then off to bed for the boys, so Mommy and Daddy Santa could put the presents under the tree.

This morning, Francis was found taking a page out of Jean-Claude Van Damme's book and doing the splits while getting ready to leave on a jet plane(s).

VDV Four Advent Day 23: Sledding

Daddy VDV took the morning of this day off so we could all go out for some family winter fun. We got all dressed in our winter attire and went sledding in our neighbourhood. Bear was a bit unsure of this at first, but quickly enjoyed himself. I showed Bug the joys of making snow angels, and then we went home to have some hot chocolate. A beautiful day!!

Francis was running a bit behind with his North Pole chores, so he had to bring some back with him. Too bad it had to be the one of him cleaning up reindeer poop.

VDV Four Advent Day 22: Make Homemade Lollipops

One of our last advent days was making these delicious homemade lollipops. I purchased some Christmas sprinkles from Bulk Barn to use for our lollipop decorating. I set aside all of the lollipop sticks (also from Bulk Barn but you can buy them at Michaels as well) and candies in little containers, so once the candy was ready, we could work quickly before it hardened. Bug helped me measure out all of the ingredients and then while it was cooking I took over, as the ingredients got quite hot. Once it was near the 310 degrees Fahrenheit on the candy thermometer, I told Bug to go sit at our decorating station and get ready. Once the temperature was reached, I brought the pot to our working area and I quickly scooped out the hot candy into circle blobs on our parchment paper lined pans. Bug stuck his lollipop stick in the bottom of the circles and then decorated to his heart's content. These were so good...we loved this. We put the completed projects in multiple little bags and gave them away as gifts. One of Bug's best buddies joined in this fun day.

Francis got into some mischief overnight, and toilet papered our blinds and TV....bad elf!

VDV Four Advent Day 21: Make Christmas Ornaments

During my many shopping trips to Dollarama and Michaels, I found a few Perler bead penguin ornament sets (perfect for our tree that is decorated in only penguins). These were excellent for helping Bug learn about patience, counting, and of course developing his fine motor skills. He thought it was so cool to see how the beads melted with the heat from the iron. Bear doodled on some penguin pictures while we made our ornaments.

Francis was found doing some skateboard tricks on our windowsill.

VDV Four Advent Day 20: Snowman Ice Cream

Today was a delightful little dessert, where I made scoops of ice cream into a snowman. I used coloured licorice for his arms and his "carrot" nose, and chocolate chips for his eyes, mouth and buttons. The boys loved this treat!

Francis was found driving a shoe shoe train this morning.

VDV Four Advent Day 19: Candy Cane Reindeer

Today's advent day was another craft I brought forth from my childhood: making reindeer out of candy canes with brown pipe cleaners, itty bitty red pompoms and googly eyes. I got Bug to help twist the the pipe cleaners after I cut them into the right lengths, and then due to the small size of the pompoms and googly eyes, I hot glued them myself. Bear, of course simply enjoyed the peppermint goodness. We made them to give with our gifts to our extended family members.

Francis was very resourceful and made an igloo out of a milk carton.

VDV Four Advent Day 18: You've Been Jingled

This is another favourite of mine from last year, and it is the last giving day we had planned in our Advent activity list. We chose 3 neighbours (we made sure they were different from last year) and gave them a mini gift bag. We stuffed the bags with Bug's custom made Christmas card (drawn pictures that I collaborated into one in photoshop), some hot chocolate, some Christmas goodies and of course some candy canes. I also made a Christmas tree ornament that says "You've Been Jingled 2013" so our recipient has something they can bring out every holiday season to remember this random act of kindness. Bug and Bear helped stuff the bags and I put a little label with a rhyming verse to say what this is for. Then we went out on a trek through the large amounts of snow our neighbourhood got this winter and left our surprise hanging from their mailbox or door knobs.

Francis was incognito this morning, dressed as a big, white snowman.

VDV Four Advent Day 17: Making Beaded Candy Canes

This day was a special day, as my sister was in town so the boys got to have some Advent fun with their Auntie. Today's craft was something I brought back from my childhood, making pipecleaner and pony bead candy canes. It was a great activity for the boys to work on their fine motor skills, and even Bear had quite a bit of interest in it. After we made all our candy canes, I put some ribbon up in our hallway opening from the living room, and hung them to display (but not before Auntie and Bug dangled them from their hats).

I thought this morning, Francis was super clever taking the burden off of Atlas and caring the world on his shoulders for the day.

VDV Four Advent Day 16: Snowman Hot Chocolate Bath

This activity is one we brought back from last year. I took mini marshmallows and painted little snowman faces on them with black and orange food colouring paste. We filled our cups with hot chocolate and I gave the snowman marshmallows to Bug and Daddy VDV to give them a hot chocolate bath (I put Bear's in for him). We took our Christmas straws and then drank the delicious chocolate-y goodness, laughing at the melting, running snowman faces. This was a hit, once again!

Francis was found this morning just getting out of the shower.