The twentieth day was a fun day of crafts and bringing a bit more festive-ness to our home.
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| And ourselves |
What would a proper silly day at the Dingman house be without one of papa's special breakfasts? Brad went to work with his new waffle iron and green food coloring to make the cutest little breakfast for his favorite little guy.
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| Christmas tree waffles! |
After filling up on waffles and sausages we had to huddle together in front of our tree for our 2015 ornament picture.
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| So happy with how it turned out. And it was only about our 80th take, ha! |
How do we get our littlest to look at the camera when we're doing a selfie? Enroll the help of our nisse of course! He has a bell inside him so it was getting her attention; our little elfie-selfie.
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Selfie sticks are a must with our growing family
(and my hobbit length arms) |
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| Dingman Christmas ornament 2015 |
I really do adore this tradition very much. Marshall loves looking back at our ornaments over the years and asking about the different Christmases.
With one new ornament done, we moved on to the craft portion. I've tried salt dough in the past for handprints and footprints and they just haven't held up over time like I've hoped. So I saw these ornament kits marked way down on sale and couldn't resist.
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| Well this should be down right easy! |
Everything went according to plan . . . until it came time to putting each child's mark on the ornament.
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| "Whhhhhy, papa, whhhhhy?!" |
Marshall cringed at first and then loved it. Loved it so much he dug his hand down as far as it would. Violet truly hated every second of it and curled her toes and foot up as much as she could. So this is what we were left with:
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Its supposed to be holy, duh
...see what I did there? |
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| Aw, just what we were aiming for |
Oy vey, let's try to forget that debacle and move on to our next craft shall we? Marshall's favorite medium: paint! Our little 'Marshall Angelo' went to town working on painting some snowflakes to put up as a little added holiday cheer.
Feeling encouraged that finally one craft went right, we plowed on to another. All year long if I see good deals I grab them and put them away in our Christmas box. These I picked up on sale from the dollar store a few years back.
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| Quality |
As I was opening the package, the tree ornament broke. That's pretty much par for the course today. Onward and upward! Marshall did such a great job of trying to paint the stripes on precisely. He's really grown into such a big boy!
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| The more you stick your tongue out, the more precise the lines! |
Now, backing up a few days, we let the kids each pick out a present for their sibling. The rule was something that the sibling could use and it had to come in at ten dollars or less.
It was a good exercise in teaching Marshall to think of what his sister would want or could use instead of thinking of what he would want. The budget also helped him learn to look at prices and worked on his simple math- teaching to stay within an allotted amount is always a valuable lesson as well!
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Picking out some cute bows since he knows sissy is always wearing some
(I let him pick which colors, but did steer him away from picking three identical black ones) |
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| What he picked for sis |
Obviously, Violet had some help from her papa this year with picking out Marshall's gift. Apparently she kept staring at the colors of Captain America the most so that's what her brother is going to be receiving.
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| So many heroes, so little time |
Fast forward back to today and it was time for Marshall to wrap the gifts he purchased for Violet. He did a pretty good job for his first time (and for being four).
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| I pre-cut the wrapping paper and the rest was up to him. |
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| I acted as the human tape dispenser as well |
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| Unrolling the ribbon for a special touch |
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| Adding the tag |
When it was time to write his name on the tag of the gift, Marshall proceeded to pull down his pants to sneak a peek at "Marshall" written on his underwear. (He was wearing Paw Patrol and one of the character's names is Marshall) This kid is something else. He was incredibly proud of his work on picking out the gifts and then wrapping them- all by himself. I think it will really help him understand the joys of gift giving and that it can sometimes be even more fun then receiving.
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| Apparently this is how Marshall Claus puts presents under the tree |
The twentieth day was a day of festive fun and sometimes frustration aka: really wanting to deck the halls. That's life though, right? Things don't always work out the way we picture it or hope for but it doesn't really matter in the end. In the end, it's the people in our lives that matter.
**Before we sign off for the day we want to say a very Merry Christmas to Brad's extended family! We are so bummed that we couldn't make this year's Christmas party due to his work schedule- hopefully next year we can make it work.**
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