Advent Activities Calendar

This year I decided I wanted to do something fun with Dart as we got closer to Christmas. While searching on Pinterest, (don't we all just love that place??) I found an idea for an activities advent calendar.

Its made up of 24 little envelopes. Inside each one is a special activity to be done that day leading up to Christmas. Today I put ours together. Most of the activities are crafts that I can do with Collin that will get hung up in the livingroom to go with our decorations but there are a few that are baking. There is also a day we get to see Santa and another day for us to go look at the Christmas lights.

I am really looking forward to this and I think that Dart will really enjoy it too.

Here are some pics of the Calendar all put together:

 Stay tuned to see how each day's project turns out.

Get this party started

2 days ago I was working on decorating the house for Christmas. I love this time of year when I can get out all sorts of extra decorations and really go wild with the house. In the process Dart was doing his best to help me out.

He would hand me things and try to tell me what looked best in his expert 2 year old opinion. And, to be honest, he was doing a pretty good job. On top of that he was helping to entertain baby sister, who has decided to become very verbal and interactive lately.

For several hours I would craft and place various things until I decided it was time to figure out where the lights needed to go up at. We don't have a tree but I still wanted lights up.  As I finished wrapping the final strand of lights around the bannister I looked down and smiled at Dart.

I said, "Well what do you think?"

He climed up into the recliner where he can reach the light switch and turned off the over head lights. Climbed back to the floor, looked around the room and said, in all seriousness, "Lets get this party started."

So there you have it. We are decorated for Christmas and its time to get this party started!

The Happy Meal Song

A few weeks ago I discovered that Dart now knows all the motions and words to the song "Itsy Bitsy Spider". I don't know if it was from Tuesday night child care or from Sunday School that he learned it but I was just excited to know that he had. So since then we have been singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" a lot.

3 days ago, while Dart was in the bathtub we started to sing our new favorite song once again. After the 4th time of the spider going up the water spout again I was ready to move on. So I decided to teach him some new songs. First we sang "The Wheels on the Bus". He had fun with that one. Especially the part where the people "Go up and down, up and down, up and down" and he could jump up and splash down in the bath water.

The last song we sang for the night before it was time to get out of the bath was Old MacDonald. I sang the song and Dart yelled out various farm animals to me. Finally, after Old MacDonald had 4 chickens, 3 moo cows, 2 horsey's, and a sheep it was time to get out of the bath. We got dressed, read a story and was off to bed.

Fast forward to yesterday in the car driving to church. Arielle was in her carseat crying because she was trapped and Dart was fussying for pretty much the same reason. I decided to try and distract at least Dart as we drove down the road.

I looked back at him and said, "Hey, Dart, lets sing wheels on the bus. We can show daddy what we learned."

2 versus into the song Dart yells out, "Mommy, sing the happy meal song! Sing the happy meal song."

"I don't know the happy meal song son. I'm sorry." I tell him

"Daddy, you sing Happy Meal Song!" He states trying to get someone to sing him the happy meal song

Dusty looks at me then proceeds to sing out the McDonalds Theme song.

"No! The happy meal song" Is the response from the back seat.

Luckly we are now at church and he is fully distraced with playing to remember what we were doing.

Fast forward again to this evening. It is yet again bath time and we are singing our songs. First the Itsy Bitys Spider, then we move on, again, to Wheels on the Bus.  Finally, it happened again.

"Sing the happy meal song, mommy." He asks very sweetly

"I don't know the happy meal song. Can you sing it for me?" As I'm making a mental note to ask his child care teacher tomorrow night what the heck the happy meal song might be.

Collin takes a minute, looks up at me and says, "The happy meal song. Farmer has a chicken"

I stop, look at him, and suddenly it clicked in my much slower brain. And we begin to sing about the Farmer having a chicken.


Any guesses as to what the "Happy Meal Song" is and why?