On Taya, On Bee-a, On Rudus with your red nose!

Oh yeah those are some original reindeer names! And Maddie wonders why we vetoed her decision to name the new baby. 

::sigh::

Yesterday I stumbled upon these adorable reindeer cards at Made By Joel and fell in love! Are they not adorable or what? Well cards weren't really in our plans but I thought they would make a cute decoration for Maddie to make.

After lunch I set Mad up with a stack of precut reindeer and her favorite markers. I printed the deer out on cardstock but they didn't want to stand up very well on their own so yes there is a reason that I left a fifth leg on each of them (see below).

Of course coloring reindeer is no easy task and each one needed it's own special touch!

Once Maddie was satisfied with her creations I took over with the glitter and glue, of course under her direct supervision! 

Now the fifth leg comes into play. To help the reindeer stay standing I folded the fifth leg under and affixed it with a small piece of tape. As Maddie would say- easy peasy.

We are little shy on the 8 (or 9 if you count Rudus) reindeer needed to pull Santa's sleigh but my little elf was only so interested!

Of course now my living room will be covered in the evil glitter what with Maddie dancing around the living room with her reindeer but I suppose it's part of the holiday magic!

Cookies for Santa

Goodness! Madison is soooo excited about the arrival of the jolly man in the red coat! She tells EVERYONE Santa is coming to her house! This morning she set to work decorating cookies for Santa and mixing up a bag of reindeer food to sprinkle on the front lawn tomorrow night. {Daddy wants the reindeer food on the roof, I believe he mentioned an air cannon....}



Reindeer food: dry oatmeal & colored sugar
With the light of the moon and Rudolph's nose the sugar will point to the way to our house!

Snow Dough

It was play dough makin' time at our house and we made snow dough this time around!

This is the recipe I use which I originally found on The Idea Room. The original recipe is for Pumpkin Spice Play Dough so some alterations have been made.

2 cups water
2 TBSP vegetable oil
1 cup salt
4 tsp. cream of tartar
2 cups flour
vanilla extract*
glitter**

Combine all ingredients in large pan on stove. Over medium heat, stir until most of the lumps disappear and it thickens up to a dough-like consistency. Dump out the dough onto your counter top and knead the dough until nice a smooth. Make sure the dough is cooled before handing it over to the kiddlets!

*I probably used about 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract and our dough smells nothing like vanilla so add as necessary!

** Madison added the glitter as I was mixing it all together in the pan- add until it is sparkly enough!

Ohhh Sparkly!

After the dough was cooled I set Madison up with a tray of snowman making materials {buttons, beads, bells, popsicle sticks, pipecleaners & ribbon} and the sparkly dough.

She set right to work making snowmen, snowladies, snowbabies, snow angels and snow reindeer!

What a work of art!

And I have to say a big THANK YOU! to The Shafer Family for pointing me in the direction of only THE BEST trays ever! Messes no more!

Cookie Cutter Painting

**My poor little girl looks like she was hit by a bus in these pictures. With an everlasting runny nose and a run in with a baby gate Madison has seen better days!**

We did this project two different days; one with a snowflake cookie cutter and another with a Christmas tree cutter.

We have never done this project before but Madison really seemed to enjoy it!

Before the paint dried with sprinkled it with glitter! We have been a little glitter crazy this month!

This looks great framed above Madison art board!

Next up was Christmas trees. Madison made three different pictures because she wanted to pass them out to her grandparents.

After the tree portion dried we used a pencil eraser and red paint to add ornaments.

Once again time for GLITTER!

How pretty!

Gingerbread Construction

I L♥VE making gingerbread houses!

Back in high school my best girlfriends and I spent one Christmas constructing gingerbread houses and it was so much fun. It is one of those wonderful memories I have and hope to continue with Madison!

Last year Madison was awfully proud of her house!

This year she had a ton of fun loading up the house with candy too!

and yes my darling daughter has a beautiful black eye in the picture! Silly girl ran into the baby gate in the kitchen. oww!

Holiday Puppet Kits

Last year during the post holiday sales I picked up two adorable Martha Stewart puppets at Walmart. Madison loves them and I love that they are actually quality materials so the puppet isn't destroyed within minutes!

Plus you can't beat $1.95!

The puppet kits come with all of the materials needed which makes them even better because we can do them anywhere! Madison is pretty capable of doing pretty much the whole puppet herself too! We have done a few other Martha Stewart craft kits and I am usually very pleased with the product. Generally I find the kits on discount at Walmart, Michael's and The Christmas Tree Shoppe!

Handprint Holidays

Surprise! Surprise!

Madison WILLINGLY finger painted! This never ever happens at our house! I was so excited when Madison said YES she would do a handprint project. Instead of risking the possibility that this would never happen again we did both a reindeer and Santa Clause project!

Can't have a reindeer with a super glittery red nose!

I love that Madison had to give Santa arms! hehehe

How cute! I am thinking these little guys are going to have to get framed!

Word Tree

YOU HAVE TO GO TO UNDER THE TABLE & DREAMING!

Then you can make one of these fabulous magazine trees too!

And oh so glittery too!

*you may want to READ the magazine before you start folding....I didn't...oops!*

Lacing Stocking

Madison has been plowing through our holiday crafts lately so I have had to include some fillers!

Materials: red craft foam, hole punch, ribbon, foam markers, glue & cotton balls

Before lacing Madison used the foam markers to decorate her stocking.

Time to lace! I am so impressed with how easily she accomplished this part.

To finish up Madison glued a few cotton balls to the top of her stocking!

The Madison Tree

Rockin' around the Christmas tree

This wasn't one of our planned crafts for the month but I got a little inspired in the craft closet and this is what we came up with!

Materials: green and brown foam, glue, sequins, scissors, hole punch & zip ties*

*zip ties are not really necessary you could always use ribbon or some other material to tie the pieces together but we generally have an overflowing abundance of zip ties in our house so I figured they would work perfectly for this project!*

I found the one and only large piece of green foam I had and cut a good size triangle out of it. Then I cut the triangle in thirds. I also used the brown foam to make a tree trunk.

Next up I handed Madison a bowl of sequins and a small bottle of glue - I cooked dinner and she crafted!

After everything dried I used the zip ties to fasten all of the parts back together again. I love how this tree came out and I think it looks very cute in the lime green color!

The True Spirit of Christmas

Of course Madison is super excited that Santa is coming to her house {she tells EVERYONE!} but I also want to help Madison understand the true meaning of Christmas.

Last year I picked up an adorable foam nativity set on clearance after Christmas and Madison had a wonderful time putting it together. We talked about all of the people included and the story of baby Jesus' birth.


I also picked up a wonderful book at the library this week called A Baby Born in Bethlehem by Martha Whitmore Hickman. I was a little nervous that the book would be too long for Madison to sit through but she loved it! It felt wonderful to read her the story of baby Jesus and answer all of her questions along the way. This book will be added to our must buy list and will be a Christmas tradition for years to come.

We did assemble an Advent wreath this week too, although I am bit late posting about it! Madison is proud of it too! The wreath is proudly presented in the center of our dining table where we eat by 'candle' light every evening!

Winter Sensory Bin

Instead of doing a Christmas bin for just this month I decided to make Madison bin for the season!

A quick trip to the Dollar Store and a bit of rummaging through the craft closet was enough to fill the bin with plenty of fun white and blue items!

I love listening to her play with the bin ~ today is was a candy factory and she was making lollipops! Too cute!