Advent Openings
It’s been a busy week – activities and expectations rise and suddenly I realise how mush there is still is to do that can’t be done until just before….
DAY nine
But each morning we have had the delight of unwrapping. I love the concept of this swap the joy of being allowed to open something every day, of pausing to feel blessed that someone has thought of you. Of unwrapping a gift with genuinely no idea of what might be in it!!
DAY ten
I so appreciate the work Cat put in to pairing people up who suited each other
DAY eleven (the boys smelly markers had already been squirreled into bags for show and tell!)
and Leonie’s thoughtful selections
DAY twelve
and her gorgeous hand-crafting
DAY thirteen (and more special characters for our magnetic nativity)
and her generosity to the boys (their gifts are disappearing into their room very quickly!)
DAY fourteen
Bounce got his crocheted bauble off the tree the other day just to show me again ‘this is the one I got first Mama and it’s still lasting.’
DAY fifteen (the lace is wrapped around a whole box of licorice – yum!)
10 days left until Christmas. I hope your weekend is filled with everything good.
at the end of a busy week
with parcels in the post and Christmas cards too (you know who you are)
gingerbread house making
school concerts
and bike races
and bouncy castles at kindy
and joyful laughing together as a family
Christmas is just around the corner but don’t miss out on today because you are so focussed on tomorrow next week.
Hear your children laugh (or better yet make them laugh), welcome your partner home with a moment of true eye contact and a joyful smile.
This is the day the Lord has made let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Make My Week #50 – My Birthday Suit!
I’m counting this as my December dress even though technically I made it before December.
This is what I wore to my birthday. I invited some of the gorgeous women in my life over. What better way to celebrate a birthday than to celebrate the women that make my life such a pleasure. I made high tea, of sorts, and we all sat and word bombed each other.
I made this pattern from a vintage pattern – one from the early sixties and there are no pattern markings on the tissue. So you need to read the instructions to know these 3 holes mean on the fold or this marking means grainline etc. The original didn’t have the puffy over skirt but I felt the fabric called for it.
I made the under garment in calico and the over part is a net curtain I picked up at a church fair for $3. I love the wee raised daisies and the subtle lemony colour. 2 people stopped me in the supermarket to comment on it so I consider that a success!!
I wore it with my self-made necklace, self-made earrings, thrifted beads and shoes from Melbourne. One of the mums from schools aid to me ‘you look very dressed up’ and I aid yeah but I bet my whole outfit is much cheaper than yours. Dress – pattern free, calico $15, net $3. Shoes $20. Necklace about $20 because I did it in a class, earrings – free, beads – 50c Total Outfit= $58.50 (I’m thriftier than Gok!)
Did you enter my giveaway? I keep adding wee things to it. 
)
So this year I challenged myself to make a new piece of clothing each month – here is a breakdown of the clothes I have made this year.
There were a couple of months I seemed to forget but other months I did a few extra so currently it stands at 16 makes and I do have at least 2 more I hope to make in the next 2 weeks!!
I’d love to know your favourite.
I’ve so enjoyed making something a piece of clothing each month – it’s got me thinking about challenges for next year! (and how much I pose with my hands on my hips!!)
Joining in with our creative spaces.
B.M.W.B #50 – Feeding the Ducks
Thanks so much to those who linked in parenting posts last weeks. There were some great ideas and some very encouraging and inspiring reads. If you missed them you can find them here.
This week we stopped to feed the ducks. We had a bag of bread crusts and it was a sweltering day – a friend suggested we joined them for ice-blocks and we suggested the join us for duck feeding so we did.
It was so lovely to stop on the way home and just get out of the usual rhythms of after-school hustle and bustle.
This year I am making more of a conscious effort to have quality moments with my boys. B.M.W.B (becoming the mama I want to be) is my way of recording and hopefully inspiring other mama’s too.
Simple. Achievable. Intentional: becoming the mama I want to be.
December Giveaway – Little Things
There is something about little things I just love so this month I thought I would make a giveaway from little things.
A little lined notebook
2 tiny tea-cup erasers
a fair-trade Christmas decoration with tiny seed beads and maybe some other tiny things too.
If you’d like a mini parcel of love for yourself this Christmas leave me a comment.
I’ll draw next Monday and try to get it in the post for you so you can receive it before the end of the year.
Thank you so much to all of you who have entered my monthly giveaways this year. I hope to continue them next year.
More Advent Openings
I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed getting out of bed so much… over the last 8 days I’ve been woken to the sound of my boys whooping with delight over the beautiful and thoughtful things Leonie has picked out for them each day. (There was no expectation for her to do something each day for them that’s just the measure of her generous heart!)
One of the best things they have said this week was when they opened this awesome magnetic story board with some of the nativity characters in it and Bounce said to me ‘Mum I think Jesus is coming for us‘ (he wasn’t in the first parcel of these they unwrapped.) I thought to myself yes little man how true.
Day FOUR:
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| Awesome jacket and skirt pattern, airhostess beads and gingerbread cottage |
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| Story board with nativity characters |
This morning I was thinking about all the amazing things Leonie has picked for me and I felt like oh my gifts are so small in comparison and then I thought isn’t that just like Christmas. We carefully pick gifts for others and wrap them with care but really they are so very small in comparison to what heaven gave us at Christmas. A God who would walk as human, grieve, feel pain, lose friends, have enemies, laugh, eat, hope…. A God who would give up power and clothe himself in helplessness.
Day FIVE:
(the glo sticks the boys received were squirreled away faster than I could get a photo of them. Flip was found sleeping with his that evening!)
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| Brownie In a Jar |
I love how no matter how generous our love, how kind our deeds, how wonderful our words they are only ever a tiny glimpse of the extravagant love of God who gave everything. A God who opens his arms to love us just as we are.
Day SIX:
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| Gorgeous Crocheted Flannels |
This Advent swap has been so wonderful and it’s not even half way through. Leonie has really chosen things so carefully in line with the things I said I liked. I think it is such a compliment when someone picks something for you, with you in mind. That is really the great discipline of gift giving to buy what someone else would like rather than what you would like yourself.
Day SEVEN:
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| I adore this quote – all framed up for me x |
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| Star Garland |
I’ve also had such fun listening to all the excited exclamations of the boys and their sense of anticipation each day. Their absolute favourite has been the magnetic story board and they are already telling and re-telling the story to each other with the characters they have so far. It’s made me think after Christmas I need to make some more characters for them to re-tell other stories they love. I do remember getting hours of delight from my mama’s flannel-graph boards as a child.
Day SEVEN boys:
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| More magnetic characters |
Tune in next Saturday to see what else has excited and delighted me… and to see if I’ve been brave enough to cut into this fabric which literally made me squeal when I opened it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen fabric I love more!!!
Day EIGHT:
friday classics
fish language - on the way to school this week I heard Flip telling Bounce he could speak fish language. Bounce said he could too but Flip said ‘no you can’t but I can introduce you to the fish and then when they know you, you will be able to speak their language’.
4-year-old knowing and wonder – we had a beautiful Christmas celebration with some other families this week and Santa came with gifts for each family. Bounce informed me seriously and quietly that ‘Santa was actually Sam’s Dad’. Then the next morning when the Wise Men had moved from the bathroom to the top of the fish tank he said to The Atlas - ’How could the Wise Men have made it over there? They must have climbed down and crossed the kitchen under the table, climbed the draws and heaved (don’t you love 4-year-old words!) themselves onto the fish tank. It’s amazing.’
I love the look of wonder on the children’s faces when Santa arrived even though they ‘knew’ who he was. They are at this beautiful place of fully entering in to the magic even if they know the truth.
We received all the pieces to make a gingerbread house – Whoop!!
There is actually heaps to love this week and so much of it is about the boys so I might just do another post about them over the weekend. I am so enjoying this Advent season.
Head over to Meghan’s the home of taking time to be grateful each week.
Make My Week # 49 – Sparkly Jewels
On Saturday it was my birthday so as well as having high tea at my place for some of my lovely friends I went to a jewellery making class with my very dear (and daring!!) friend Deb.
We went to this class at the Make Cafe
It was a lot of fun and beautifully decorated including fudge, sweet treats, tea, coffee, fancy juice all in a beautiful setting. If you live in Chch and something interests you I would so recommend any of the classes.
This is what I made – cute huh? I used beautiful origami paper I picked up when we were in Melbourne.
Joining in with Our Creative Spaces.
B.M.W.B # 48 – Building Traditions
This year for the first time I feel really excited by Advent (rather than swamped by good intentions and no time to execute them!). I think the boys are at an age where they can fully participate with it and engage in the excitement as well understanding the deeper meaning of it all.
For the first time this year I have made an advent calendar for the boys and filled with an activity for every day of advent.
Some are Christmassy and some are just about being together as a family.
Here is our list. This one was mainly inspired by Treena-Marie and there are some other excellent lists I’ve seen around too.
1. Decorate the tree
2. Family Christmas celebration with some other families
3. Make Cards for the teachers
4. Sing carols together as a family (with the help of You Tube!) Changed to making woolly sheep from our advent swap parcel
5. Have a pancake breakfast
6. Make snowflakes to hang around the house
7. Have hot chocolates and read Christmas stories before bed
8. Go to the supermarket and each choose something for the Christmas food bank
9. Plant something together Make the gingerbread house we got given all the pieces for
10. Play board games together before bed
11. Make ‘Christmas Puddings’ (mallow puffs with white chocolate, jaffas and spearmint leaves)
12. Read Luke 1 – maybe act it out?
13. Make Reindeer noses for friends (these are the ones we did last year http://makeitgiveit.wordpress.com/2011/12/15/hello-friday/ )
14. Mum’s Shop the Christmas version (the boys come and shop for each other – this is what my mum’s shop thing is all about - http://createhopeinspire.blogspot.co.nz/2012/09/bmwb-36-mums-shop.html )
15. Family bike ride – flip a coin at each corner to see which way to turn
16. Make Christmas crackers together
17. Read Luke 2
18. Listen to Christmas music
19. Do some baking together to give way
20. Watch a Christmas movie together
21. Wrap up gifts with mum (stuff they bought at Mum’s shop)
22. Go to a friend’s house and sing them some carols (The Atlas will hate this one!!)
23. Make North Pole cupcakes these are ours from last year http://makeitgiveit.wordpress.com/2011/11/21/make-my-week-44-christmassy-edibles/
24. Go to the Christmas eve service
This week the boys and I spent Friday afternoon putting the tree up together. This is a reasonably (for my skills!) complex task and there were times I wanted to just shoo them away so I could do it quickly. But I stopped and intentionally reminded myself I want this to be special for all of us, we are in no hurry, this is supposed to be fun - it made all the difference.
Then while they were in bed I put up the Advent Calendars, got the nativity out, positioned the wise men (they are making their way to Bethlehem and the boys have to fund them every day), and put up the wreath. I also wrapped the Christmas Books we were giving them and made and wrapped a handmade ornament for them both (a yearly tradition).
So on Saturday (my birthday) we spent a beautiful morning as a family decorating our tree. I love the sense of decorating together. The anticipation of many shared family activities and the conversations that arise. We talked about the Christmas Tree and how it is ‘ever-green’ and how that reminds me that God’s love for all of us is also ever green – it never changes, it never runs out, it never dies.
I have so enjoyed doing this series. I know it has really grown me as a Mama.
This year I am making more of a conscious effort to have quality moments with my boys. B.M.W.B (becoming the mama I want to be) is my way of recording and hopefully inspiring other mama’s too.
Simple. Achievable. Intentional: becoming the mama I want to be.
also in keeping with the Christmas theme I’m linking in here
and here
