Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Festival of Trees

The Festival of Trees at the Pearson Air Museum was a winning combination! Old airplanes, check. Flight simulators the kids could try, check. A talking tree, check. Santa and Mrs. Clause, check. Beautifully decorated Christmas trees, check. A scavenger hunt for words hidden in the Christmas trees, check (what a great idea!). Vote for your favorite tree, check. A small plane to sit in, check. Grandpa, Grandma & Auntie with us, check! AND... it just so happens we showed up a half hour before a local Dance company was putting on a performance! The girls enjoyed that (there was no hip hop, so the boys were just not interested).  
 
 
 
 
 
Posted by Picasa

Santa

We went to the Festival of Trees at the Pearson Air Museum. The kids talked to Santa there. Only one child resorted to tears (can you guess who?).
 

 

Posted by Picasa

Thanksgiving

We are so thankful that Grandpa, Grandma, Auntie Chanda and Auntie Marjie joined us for Thankgiving this year! What a wonderful time we had together (with lots of scrumptious food)!
 
Posted by Picasa

New Thanksgiving Traditions

I remember many traditions as a child. Birthdays, especially. We had our pictures up on a wall for our birthday (all of the snapshots and K-Mart and school pics my parents owned). We picked our meals for our birthdays. Certain birthdays always got certain presents. We went to a bakery on Christmas Eve and got to pick anything we wanted, as long as we could eat it all there. We had people over to read the Christmas story and light the final Advent candle on Christmas Eve. The list could go on and on...

Traditions are important to me, and Travis has thankfully not only jumped in alongside my hopes for traditions, but created many new traditions for our Armstrong family as well. Most (so far) revolve around birthdays and Christmas.

Well, this year, I wanted to do something for Thanksgiving... after a week of fun crafts with the kids (see previous post), we had some Thanksgiving decorations. Then, for Thanksgiving, everyone used fabric paint to fabric paint their handprint. These were placed on our tablecloth with each person's name and the year. Then each person wrote (or dictated) what they were thankful for and this was written by their handprint.

I also finished the turkeys that were put on our Thanksgiving table! Below are the kids' handprints, thankfulness quotes and turkeys:


I'm thankful we have food and aren't starving. - Katiree

I'm thankful that Jesus made the whole world for us to live on. - Tate

I'm thankful Aunt Chanda came. - Zane

Kezia - not enough words to dictate, but I assume she's thankful for (in no particular order) doggies, Elmo, Tee-tee, Z, Tate, Boppa, Maama, Papa, Nana, Miss... Anna, Baby, Mama, Dada, Dog-dog, and Nana (how she says Auntie - for Auntie Marjie and Auntie Chanda).
Posted by Picasa

Thanksgiving Crafts


We made turkey handprints and glued them onto a huge card that was supposed to be for grandparents, but I never got them mailed in time. So they graced our wall instead. I may have gotten crafts done this year, but I still am lacking in the US Postal Service realm. Sigh... I keep hoping I'll be better at this sending things off in time idea!

The arm/hand was each child's traced on brown paper, cut out and glued to white paper. Then they finger painted their leaves.

Each child's handprints made into Pilgrim men on the Mayflower. The kids (not Kezia) drew hats on the Pilgrim mens' heads.

And our turkeys from last year...

All these crafts made wonderful decorations for our dining room!
Posted by Picasa

Children and Paint

We did not have school (formally) the week of Thanksgiving. However, what they didn't know was that they were getting "school" in anyway! We read books about the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving. We watched video clips about the Mayflower. We did art projects.

And art projects... so... starting with the bases of what would be our turkeys... the kids painted egg carton pieces brown. Then they painted their hands brown just for the fun of it (I just don't have a picture of Katiree, but she did too!)

brown egg carton pieces

Kezia painted her own hand.

Tate painting his hand.

Zane painting his hand.

Notice the tongue sticking out when she's concentrating... too cute!
Posted by Picasa

Friday, November 2, 2012

Great Family Pictures

Our friends at Photo Macy took our family pictures this September. They turned out beautifully!

http://photomacy.com/blog/2012/11/01/travis-beth-the-fab-four/