Merry Christmas | Christmas Nativity

 Merry Christmas! It's Christmas Eve afternoon, and half of us are visiting with family. The other half are napping or preparing for tomorrow. We've been having fun playing with some new Nativities. Here are the Nativity Blocks I made for Otto and Atlas to play with. They both love them, and I love them too, since I'm not worried about them getting wrecked! We've been doing a Christmas advent calendar, with Christmas activities each day. I set these up the night before, and in the morning when I told them there were Nativity Blocks to play with, they were so excited!

I used this set

  

(if you're interested in this set for this purpose, you will need to ask for the PNG files from the company because they only provide you with a PDF file, which is locked and comes in larger sizes than you really want for this project). I shrunk all the images in photoshop and printed them out at home, then mod podged them onto the blocks.

Merry Christmas to you all

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I hope you have time to reflect on the Nativity in your own ways, as we have had the chance to do all this month.

In the Christmas-Making mode

It's been busy around here, getting ready for Christmas. I like to hand-make or "home-made" many of my gifts - a tradition handed down to me from my parents. And because pretty much everything I've been making these days are Christmas presents for some who may read this blog, I can't post any pictures yet!

I do miss scrapbooking, and hope to get back to it after the Christmas rush. Looking forward to a scrapbook day with my SIL. Here's a LO I did before all my Christmas preparations began, but I just haven't posted it yet!

This year has been somewhat exciting, seeing the joy on the boys' face, and being able to do more with Otto. We do an "activity advent", where we do some sort of Christmas activity each day. This morning, we baked some plastic ornaments - a project you'd think Atlas would enjoy as well, and he did... for about a minute. Then the beads were unceremoniously dumped on the tray, and the crying commenced (he woke up WAY too early this morning and is currently down for his second nap of the day!) Now, I say "somewhat" exciting, mostly because I get all excited to do a simple craft with Otto, and sometimes it works out, but most of the time, he's either entirely uninterested or he is occupied for only a short while. I need to remind myself that he is 3 and actually doing pretty good considering. We have been to the Santa Claus Parade (out in the cold!) and Story Time with Santa. Otto and I went to "Christmas at the Hive" at a local honey farm. We've made a foam gingerbread house, several ornaments, watched several new movies, and read lots of Christmas books. Christmas is still wonderful, no matter what age.

Sharing I The Christmas Story video

T'is the season to share the Christmas spirit, to think about our Savior's birth. This video has got to be the cutest version of the Christmas Story ever. Their other videos are wonderful as well. Merry Christmas!