Tot School Tuesday - Christmas

We continued through Week Two of our Pre-School Advent Calendar.  It's been so fun to create these memories with the kids!  Look for a new set of ideas, to last you until Christmas, to post tomorrow!

 I finally got some good shots of Stone working on his Christmas Pre-School Activity pack.  Look at how he's holding that pen!  We've been working SO hard on our fine motor skills and he's made great strides in catching up!

 Seriously, check out that S!

 He worked on the beginning sounds and could do them all first try when provided with only the letters to be used.  I tried adding a few more in to up the ante, but he got really frustrated.  We'll continue working and adding, he thought this was a super-fun activity!

 Stone and the little boys love ordering objects...smallest to largest!

 I mentioned this in my last post, his favorite out of the entire pack!

 We're really into playing games and Hullabaloo is one of our favorites!  Sometimes Holden likes to play with his own rules.  Using his head to hit the button while holding your left food in the air?  Sure, why not?

 For this week's part of our Advent calendar, the boys worked on their stars for the tree.

 I love watching their little hands work!

 Holden's favorite part of the Christmas story is the part about the star.  He loves the idea that it was used as a map... he also loves stars,so its a perfect fit!

 We hung the stars on the tree and the boys loved picking the perfect place for each one...

 ... and they looked so beautiful in the glow of the tree!

 We also attended a Christmas party hosted by our local CPS board.  The kids had a blast creating lots of crafts, including these amazing snow men!  You can find step-by-step directions to create them here.  You can also see the amazing photo we got with Santa at the event here!  It's worth the click, promise!

We also worked on making Christmas trees for the squirrels and birds.  It was a bit of a harder task than I planned for, mostly because of this...

Once we got the peanut butter on, it was smooth sailing.  Our kids really like the wildlife that surrounds our house, so this was a fun activity for them.

 Stone spent a good, long time waiting by the window looking for a squirrel to take the Christmas tree he lovingly made.  And, he found a taker!  It was hard to keep him quiet (he was SO excited!) so he wouldn't scare the squirrel away!

We've spent a lot of our time talking about the Christmas story and focusing on the animals that were present at Christ's birth.  Cash (yes, he's wearing some make-up - I need to store it higher) loves this part of the story and he also loves telling the part about how Mary forgot to make reservations, so Jesus had to be born in the barn.  Oops!

 The finished sheep!  What fun!

And just in case the sheep were thinking about wandering around the house... Cash and Holden built a fence out of toilet paper rolls.  They think of everything!

This is my favorite picture of the week!  Heath's work schedule has been really hard - he's gone from the flexibility of working from home, getting to see the boys throughout the day, to having to go into the office before they get up and getting home just before bed.  It's been a hard transition for all of us!

The boys have always cherished their time with their daddy, but now, even moreso.  I love that God blessed me with such an amazing man, who is the best daddy I know!