Hand Print Reindeer

For any out there who may mistakenly think that all (or any, for that matter) of our crafts and projects go nicely and smoothly...I'd like you to know that the child pictured above eats paint every time. And then throws a fit, every time, because it tastes terrible. He gets paint all over his chair, and all over the table, and all over his face, and all over in his hair--always. And he's only 1/3 of the chaos that goes around here when we do a project. But we keep doing them, not because it's easy (because it isn't) but because I think it has value for the kids, and that makes it worth it.

We made hand print reindeer this week. My kids are really in to hand print art. So I'm lucky that you can do pretty much everything with a hand print. In fact, we've done so many that now the first thing they do when we pull out the paint is to try and paint their hand. But I thought these reindeer turned out really cute. I've we ever get around to it, I think I'll do Santas to match. They look good hanging in my kitchen window. (All our good art gets hung in the kitchen window, it lasts longer there than on the fridge, and that way we can use it for decorations as well.)

These were nice and easy to finish up too. Once the hand print dried, I just used a magic marker to make black hooves and antlers, an eye, and a mouth. And a red marker for the nose, and a green marker to write Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays. Oh, and I should mention that the tail is a thumb print. You can't really see it in the picture.

We've reached a point where Adelia takes a morning nap and gets up just in time for Linc and Ivan to go down for their naps, and then by the time Ivan is about to get up, Adelia is ready to go back down. So we have a very long section of our day devoted to nap time. It's fine, it just means we stay home a lot. But we've been getting creative with the ways we entertain ourselves, so that's good.

One of the things we've been doing a lot of, is telling the nativity story. Lincoln loves it. He likes to repeat the line that the angel says to the shepards. Aaron came up with a creative way to use Lincoln's Imaginets to tell the nativity story. (I LOVE the Imaginets set by the way! And Lincoln is really starting to get in to it, which makes it even more fun. Highly recommend it.) They used the Imaginet pieces to create a nativity scene. I thought they were so clever.

We've also been impersonating Buzz Lighteryear quite a bit.

We've been playing with Adelia a lot. Seeing which toys she really likes, how long she'll stay in her jumpy seat, and trying to be quiet when she's down for her naps.

We've built a few forts, found a new love for our Mega Bloks, and just generally trying to keep ourselves entertained with any means we can find. But my boys have been playing so well together lately. It's made being in a lot easier. The other day Ivan was napping and Lincoln was not, and Linc asked me if it was time to go wake up Ivan yet. I said no. And Linc got a pouty lip and said, "But I wanna play with him." SO CUTE!! I almost let him wake Ivan up....but then I thought about it for one second and came to my senses. :)