Crafts and Cookies

Since our Fall crafts were a hit with Aubri, we continued to do arts and crafts together throughout December.

I made a paper chain countdown until Christmas. We called it "One day closer to Christmas" and every morning Aubri would remind me that we needed to do it. I was unsure if she would understand the concept, but after a couple of days I'm confident she did. She would tell us "It's getting smaller! Christmas coming!"

I was trying to figure out where to hang it, and temporarily set it over her toys. It ended up staying there the whole month and worked out great.

You can see a sample of our crafts and our tiny little chain in this picture that we took 3 days before Christmas. I forgot to take pictures while we made our little angels (can you tell which one Aubri put the wings on??) and snowman, and also didn't get a picture of our hand print Chrismas tree- somehow pulling the camera out when we had green paint everywhere didn't seem like a good idea!

One day Aubri and I glued together parts of a nativity (left over from a Sunday School craft). I helped a lot with one, and the other I let her do with me pointing her in the right direction.

Even though I'm not a perfectionist, I got to admit that it is hard to see a sideways heart and Mary hanging off the side! But when I see how proud of her work she is, it melts my heart!

One day I made gingerbread cookies and she helped decorate them. Neither of us are pros, but she sure had fun eating sprinkles! She actually did do a good job sticking the sprinkles for eyes and buttons, and realllly loves to shake the extra messy sprinkles over the frosting. I think she asked every day after to make more cookies.

I invited the girls from church over for a Holiday bake day. I did it last year, and aside from the huge mess it made it was a huge success. I tried doing the same this year, but no one could make it except for the two greatest bakers I know! Our niece Savannah and cousin Brandie came over and we baked all day. I forgot to take pictures, but trust me it was amazing! We sold the treats at the church bake sale the next day and the proceeds benefited children's and youth ministries. Even though other girls couldn't make it to help, we had several others contribute their baked goods for the sale too.

I didn't get any pictures of the bake day, but I caught Savannah hard at work a few days later! She and Grammy offered to make us dinner complete with appetizers and dessert. Look at her cute Fruity Pebbles Christmas tree!

Today when I told Aubri we were going to do something very special she asked "Make more snowman crafts?!" We are actually going to the children's museum, but it was a good reminder how much Aubri loves craft time. I need to think of some cute things to do in January!