Day 4 - Our First Gingerbread House

 

 

For Day 4 of our Christmas Countdown, we decorated a gingerbread house. One of my local friends makes beautiful, fresh and sturdy gingerbread houses and sells them already assembled with extra frosting to decorate. I had always wanted to make a gingerbread house, but was a little intimidated by the assembly process, so I jumped at the chance to get one pre-made.

When we received our gingerbread house last weekend, it looked and smelled so good we had to resist the urge to eat it! We finally had the opportunity to decorate it last night. As I was setting up the supplies, Nathan exclaimed "I'm so excited!"

They couldn't wait to get started.

The decorating and sampling began!

"No, Hannah, the trees go on the yard, not in your mouth!"

Go to our Christmas Countdown post to see all of our activities so far!

Day 3 - Christmastime in New York City!

Yesterday mid-morning, Jared came out of his home office to tell me that he needed to head to Manhattan to interview someone in the afternoon and would be staying the night there as he had a meeting on Long Island the following morning. "Want to come?" he asked, half joking. I think he was surprised when I responded "Yes!"

I love New York City and have been dying to go since we moved here but it always sounded a little daunting to take three young kids there. Somehow, though, after having six kids the day before, an overnight trip to the city with just three kids sounded totally doable!

I made arrangements with a nearby kennel to take our dog Jack overnight, packed some necessities for the kids, and hit the road mid afternoon so that we arrived in the city just after Jared's interview was over. I was super proud of myself for managing the crazy traffic and getting us to our hotel, the Marriott Marquis on Times Square, all by myself!

The best part about our room, on the 28th floor, was the awesome view of Times Square below.

Looking down from our window.

We loved this billboard across from our window!

The kids loved hanging out in front of the window, looking down at the traffic and people, and watching the ads on the giant screens!

After checking out the room, it was time to show the kids the city! Our first stop was the huge Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.

This picture of the kids in front of the tree does not show how enormous it is. The part captured in the picture is just a tiny portion of the entire tree. There were so many people there, so it was hard to get a good picture from far away to get more of the tree in the shot!

We walked up 5th, past Saks Fifth Avenue, which had a really neat Christmas light and music display on the side of the building. Our next stop was FAO Schwarz, which of course the kids loved! Here are a couple of pictures of them playing on the giant piano.

Then we headed back towards Times Square, stopping for slices of pizza at Ray's Pizza.

Our last stop was the M&M store. Nathan and Hannah each got a small baggie of their favorite kind and color of M&Ms. Nathan chose red plain, and Hannah pink peanut.

This picture was really funny. I was taking a picture of the kids posing with the red M&M when a sweet young Asian woman got really excited and was gesturing and trying to talk to me, but didn't speak much English. At first I thought she was offering to take a picture of me with the kids and started to hand her my camera, but no, it turned out she wanted to take a picture of me and the kids with her own camera! So Jared took a picture of us with ours, and some lady we don't know now has a picture of us on her camera too! Strange.

We were pretty beat by the time we got back to the hotel, but the kids were troopers and let me take this picture of them in their matching Christmas pajamas. Every year I get them matching holiday pajamas (one year it was Thanksgiving pajamas), and it has turned into a fun tradition.

So Day 3 of our Christmas Countdown was even more exciting than I had originally planned! Be sure to check out Day 1 and Day 2 if you haven't already!

Do you have a favorite big city to visit? Have you ever been to New York City?

Day 2 - Christmas Veggie Tales, kettle corn, and Sandy clean-up

Day 2 of our Christmas Countdown was quite busy! Earlier in the week, we had received an email from the leadership in our ward (church congregation) that volunteers were need to help Hurricane Sandy victims in Rockaway, NY with clean-up this weekend. As it was a day-long commitment and I am still nursing baby Ray, I knew I would not be able to participate, so I started looking for ways to help from home. 

On Thursday night, I was talking to one of my friends and mentioned that I would be willing to watch kids on Sunday if a husband and wife wanted to go down. She was excited about that possibility and we decided that I would take her 3 daughters for the day (their 8 year old son is allergic to our cat, so he went to another friend's house). 

Jared had been considering going, but when he found out that I would be taking care of 6 kids ages 6 and under, he opted to stay home and help, which also allowed him to cover at church for the youth leaders who were volunteering (he is the Young Men's President in our ward currently, a youth leadership calling). I was thankful for his help, especially preparing meals and doing dishes while I managed the chaos!

Saturday evening we sat down with Nathan and Hannah and explained who was coming and why. We reminded them about the big storm that took our power out, and told them that some people's homes were "broken" in the storm, and that their friends were coming to stay for the day so that their parents could go help fix the broken homes. 

msn.com picture of a home in the Rockaway area of Queens, NY

It was an exhausting but fun day. The girls arrived at 5:30 AM in cheerful spirits, considering the early hour. I was glad that I had babysat them in our home before, so they were comfortable and not scared by new surroundings. I read books to them for awhile, but when our kids woke up around 6:30, things were in full swing!

Jared had church meetings at 8:30 AM, so it was up to me to get everyone ready for church. Dressing 6 kids plus myself in Sunday clothes while packing snacks and other necessities was a daunting task, but we managed just fine and were ready to load up by the time Jared returned just before 10 to help drive the kids to church. Of course once we got to church (a little late), there were plenty of people to help entertain kids during sacrament meeting (the main worship service), then get the kids off to their Sunday School classes and the nursery.

The rest of the day was quite fun with only a few chaotic moments. Why is it that dirty diapers, squabbles over toys, and cats throwing up all tend to happen just when you're trying to prep dinner?!

For our Christmas Countdown activity we chose something simple: we watched the VeggieTales video St Nicholas: A Story of Joyful Giving. I like this video because it relates Santa Claus to helping and giving to others without expecting anything in return. The kids loved the fun songs and silly veggie humor, as always.

Here is a picture of Nathan and Hannah along with two of the girls (ages 6 and 3) watching the video and munching on the kettle corn that we purchased at the Christmas tree farm the day before. Ray and our youngest guest were napping, and I had spread blankets and pillows out for the four older kids to help encourage them to rest.

Our friends returned for their kids around 8 PM, and it was wonderful to hear their stories of the people they were able to serve. The devastation that is still prevalent in that area is horrific. They told us that as people clean out their homes, they pile the rubble on the streets, where it is removed daily, but still there are just piles of rubble everywhere. Rockaway is a thin strip of land where the water came up on both sides and met in the middle. One person said that in order to comprehend what these people are dealing with, you would need to close up your house and fill it with 4 feet of water, then go without power or electricity for weeks. 

There were over 200 volunteers, organized into teams of 10, that worked up and down the streets helping anyone who needed them. In particular, our friends spent much of their time tearing out sheet rock and everything else in a basement that needed to be gutted.

We are thankful we were able to assist others to be able to go down and help, but I wish there was more we could do! I am thankful to be a part of a Church that is so organized and active in humanitarian efforts all over the globe.

Check back later to find out to read about Day 3, or read about Day 1 here. Here's an explanation of our Christmas Countdown.

Do you volunteer? I would like to look for ways to get more involved in the community, but it's hard to find things I can do with my young children, does anyone have good ideas?

Day 1 - Christmas Tree Hunt

We started out our Christmas Countdown with a trip to Geer's Tree Farm in Griswold, CT to find the perfect tree for our living room. This tree farm is huge, with rolling hills covered in beautiful trees. First, we hopped on a wagon ride that took us to the top of one of the hills where the trees of our choice, Fraser Fir, where located.

Getting ready to ride up the hill

I was a little nervous at this point because it was chilly riding on the wagon. I was worried that the kids would get too cold before we found a tree!

Jared and the kids, pre-snowball fight!

I shouldn't have worried, for two reasons: first, the kids had so much fun running around looking at trees (and throwing snowballs at their dad while he cut one down), that they totally forgot about being cold. And second, it took all of five minutes to find a beautiful tree. Honestly, all of the trees were just gorgeous. We would have been happy with the very first one we saw, although we did feel like we needed to hunt a little, just to enjoy the experience!

standing in front of the tree we chose

All in all, it was a very fun afternoon, and a great start to our Christmas Countdown!

Here is a picture of our newly completed advent calender, made by my talented friend Brandy Lewis.

Nathan is already very excited and understands that the bird has to land in each of the pockets, one per day, until we get to Christmas at the bottom. In fact, when Jared said "Merry Christmas!" to him earlier tonight, Nathan replied, "No, it's not Christmas yet! We're only on the 1, we have to get all the way to the 25!" pointing at the calender.

Check back tomorrow to find out what we do on Day 2!

Do you prefer real Christmas trees or artificial?
If real, do you like to go cut your own tree down?

Our Christmas Countdown

For awhile now, I have been trying to figure out a fun tradition to help count down the days until Christmas. My kids are at the age where they start asking, sometimes multiple times per day, the age-old question "How many more days until Christmas?" I guess that's why advent calenders are so popular. You know, the ones with the tiny, stale pieces of chocolate in them?

Last year I briefly considered jumping aboard the Elf on the Shelf craze. At first it seemed like a fun tradition that the kids would love. But the more I read about it, the more I realized that I didn't particularly care for the basic premise: the Elf sits on a shelf watching the kids during the month of December and reports back to Santa if they are good or bad. In reviews that I read, parents said that it really helped improve their children's behavior.

That's great and I am not criticizing anyone who loves Elf on a Shelf, but I have been challenging myself lately to think long-term instead of short-term when it comes to my parenting style. Would I prefer the immediate gratification of being able to say "Stop that [unpleasant behavior] or the Elf will tell Santa and you won't get any presents!" or would I rather model and encourage thoughtful, caring behaviors in my children, keeping in mind that my ultimate goal is not kids who behave perfectly short-term when a reward is dangled in front of them, but instead future adults who are kind, self-motivated, and look for ways to help others.

Okay, off my soapbox now!

Once again, this year the desire for a fun Christmas countdown tradition was in the back of my mind. So when one of my Facebook friends posted a link to 75 Ideas for a Simpler, Greener, more Intentional Christmas, #9 caught my eye. And a couple of days later, when my friend Brandy posted a link to a beautiful advent calender on her Gems of the Soil etsy shop, an idea was born.

So now, I am excited to announce the Kirkpatricks' First Annual Christmas Countdown!

I purchased one of Brandy's hand-made advent calenders for my family. This picture is from Brandy's etsy listing. Our personal advent calender will have crimson stitching and our last name will be embroidered across the top. I will post pictures soon!

photo courtesy of Brandy Lewis

Each day, there will be a slip of paper in that day's pouch for my kids to pull out and have me read to them. On the paper will be a Christmas-themed activity for us to do together. Some days it will be something simple like drinking hot cocoa and reading Christmas books or driving around looking at Christmas lights, and other days it will be a little more ambitious like the Christmas party we are hosting for our preschool-aged friends and their moms in a couple of weeks. Several of the activities will be service-oriented, and many I hope will help me teach my kids the true meaning of Christmas.

I am very excited to do this with my kids, and I invite you to follow our little Christmas Countdown journey with us as I blog about our activities every day in the month of December. Ambitious? Yes. Worth it? I believe so!

If you would like to follow along, bookmark this post. As I blog about each day's activity, I will add the link below:

Day 1 - Christmas Tree Hunt
Day 2 - Christmas Veggie Tales, kettle corn, and Sandy clean-up
Day 3 - Christmastime in New York City
Day 4 - Our First Gingerbread House
Day 5 - Christmas Stroll
Day 6 - Decorating the Tree and Candid Mom Confessions
Day 7 - Giving to Others
Day 8 -Giving to Others Part 2
Day 9 - Making Snowflakes
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14
Day 15
Day 16
Day 17
Day 18
Day 19
Day 20
Day 21
Day 22
Day 23
Day 24

What are your favorite holiday traditions?

My Memories Suite 3 Giveaway

 

I am very excited to announce my second giveaway! I was recently given the opportunity to review the digital scrapbooking program called My Memories Suite 3. I was intrigued, mostly because I have so many digital pictures just waiting to be printed and put in an album. I dabbled in scrapbooking years ago and enjoyed it, but it never seemed practical to have all those papers and supplies floating around my house, sure to be ruined by my three kids before they ever became a beautiful scrapbook!

So I agreed to do the review, curious to see if this could be something that would be useful for my blog as well as my family photos. The first thing I made was my new blog header (see above). Cute, huh? Considering it was my first time using the software, I was surprised by how quickly I was able to make a fun, Thanksgiving-themed header. The resolution for my photo was a little fuzzy when I uploaded it to the blog, but I believe that was due to the resizing that blogger required for the header. I am looking forward to making a Christmas themed header and experimenting with it to see if I can improve that aspect a bit.

Next I made a couple of scrapbooking pages to get a better feel for the program. For a novice scrapbooker like me, I was really pleased with how they turned out! And the My Memories Suite program seemed pretty intuitive to me to use. They have lots of basic background papers available for free with the program, with more detailed and fancy kits available for download through their website. They aren't free, but seemed really reasonable priced especially when compared to scrapbooking paper which can only be used once, whereas the digital kits can be used as many times as you'd like! And a lot of them are so beautiful!!!!

Here are several examples of the pages I made with the program:

photos by Rachel Smith Photography, Aurora, CO

photos by Rachel Smith photography, Aurora, CO

photos by Rachel Smith Photography, Aurora, CO

Aren't they gorgeous? I can't wait to put together a photobook. There are so many things you can do with this program beyond scrapbooking, like blog graphics and headers, calenders (how cute of a Christmas gift would that be?!), and movies with pictures and music.

I am especially excited because I have been given the opportunity to give one of my readers a free copy of the software as well! To enter the giveaway, simply visit MyMemories.com and check out their digital paper packs and layouts, then come back and leave a comment saying which one you liked the best! Make sure you link your comment to your email address so I have a way to contact you if you win!

And if you don't win, or if you don't want to wait to get started with the program, use the coupon code STMMMS5458 to get $10 off the My Memories Suite 3 software!

Happy digital scrapbooking! :)

Void where prohibited. I was given a free copy of the My Memories software in exchange for my review, but my opinions are my own. This giveaway is sponsored by My Memories, and they will be providing me with a code to give to the winner to redeem on their website for the free software. The giveaway will be open until Monday, November 26 at midnight Eastern Time, at which point I will select a winner using random.org.

Are you prepared?

On our third day of our recent five day power outage, we decided last minute to book a hotel room with points. As we scurried around packing overnight bags for everyone, my husband asked me if I wanted to bring my oils. At first I said no, since I have several little bottles of my favorites in a pouch on my keychain. Then I decided to bring my box of oils, just in case.

I was definitely glad I did, for sure enough, Hannah had a tummy ache just an hour after checking into the hotel. I was able to quickly pull out the Digestzen, rub a little on her belly, and help ease her discomfort. It felt great to know I had solutions to most common ailments right at my fingertips, but it got me thinking:


Was I prepared in other ways for the storm or other natural disasters and/or emergencies?

Unfortunately, the answer was no. Even though our church counsels us to be prepared for emergencies by having 72 hour kits prepared and to build up to a year's supply of food, in my own family we have been sadly lax in heeding that advice. We had very little in the way of food storage and what we did have wasn't easily prepared using our available cooking methods (the grill). We ended up eating a lot of peanut butter sandwiches, dried cereal, and fast food.

We also didn't have 72 hour kits prepared. Even though we didn't have to evacuate, it would have been nice to have these ready even when we decided to book a hotel at the last minute.

Since we feel there is no time like the present to start, we have since purchased a generator and are working on plans to start building our food storage and other emergency preparedness measures.

What have you done to prepare for emergencies? Do you have any food storage tips or other ideas for us as we get started?