this is a re-post blog entry from advent, 2007. i have to remind myself of its message every time i sit down to do crafts with my kids.
today, i spent the afternoon with two friends and their children making gingerbread houses. we all had a great time, got sugared up just in time for dinner (woo hoo!) and are all proud "parents" of some lovely gingerbread houses. i enjoyed the day being with my friends and watching the boys be with theirs. how i love spending the day as a family, and as families, with friends.
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originally posted december, 2007
advent sundays are so fun...they're feast days, so fun happens. last week we spent sunday afternoon with my parents and yesterday our friends traveled from the big city to eat and fellowship with us.
this morning, it was grey all morning long. the forecast called for nothing but grey. fortunately, i had a whole hour to plan the day between the time kenny left for work and when the boys woke up. and here's how our day went down:
we were out of milk (the milkman comes every monday around 8:30) so breakfast was muffins and apple juice. i found a chicken carcass (lovely word, i know) in the freezer, so i decided to make chicken soup for dinner. i found a fabulous recipe for dumplings or homemade noodles (there is a fine line between the two and i would call what i ended up making dumplings, and not noodles. but they were fantastic nonetheless - the only thing that all three boys inhaled) from the boomama soup carnival. so i started the pot-o-broth with some additional frozen vegetable cuttings i had stored and continued cleaning the kitchen while the boys ate their breakfast.
after getting dressed, we all headed to michaels. it was a grey morning, but that didn't stop us from bringing some color inside! i had started clipping strips for the construction-paper-garland (that we all did as kids - but rowan and sawyer don't remember doing it last year, so it's new to them!) this morning, and we needed just a few other supplies for more kid-friendly christmas decorations.
i don't know about other moms with kids who like to make things and like to craft...but i always have an idea in my head about how something will turn out and it just doesn't turn out quite as i had planned. but i'm learning to let go of this and embrace my kids (very eager and yet oh-so-young) artistic endeavors. for instance...
i planned to make these with the boys:
instead, we
ate gumdrops until we were sick worked hard and ended up with these treasures (with a lack of reds and purples. hrmmmm...):
and i bought tinsel-like pipe cleaners to put these up all over the mantels:
and we ended up with:
i've let go of my need for a martha-stewartesque decorated home and treasure every little arts and craft that decorates our rooms for any celebration. i don't think the boys would enjoy making things if i was a drill-sergeant craft instructor.
after our craft-time (and adam's nap), rowan helped me roll out and throw in the dumplings to our soup, now simmering with edible vegetables, waiting to be eaten. kenny came home and he gushed over the gumdrop trees and pipe-cleaner contraptions, said the soup was delicious and we all settled in for a long winter's night.
thank goodness this monday didn't feel grey all day.