Tissue Paper Snowflakes

More winter crafting has been going on over here. 

Easy winter crafting of course. 

We have been decorating our walls with tissue paper snowflakes. 

They are super easy and the kids think they are the coolest thing ever. 

They said that opening them up to see what the design looks like is just like opening a present.

And they are so amazed at how each one is different. 

In case you are a little rusty on your snowflake making skills see the step by step pictures above. 

 Happy snowflake making! 

Popsicle Stick Snowflakes

I love the snow. 

I'm just not a huge fan of the cold. 

Actually I am a giant wimp in the cold. 

I just got a pair of fleece leggings which are amazing. 

People keep coming up with the best inventions. 

Like these. 

They totally make fake trees a million times cooler. 

Anyways...remember over thanksgiving break I told Kenzie we could do a craft every day?

Well we made 3. 

Not quite everyday but she was happy. Maybe I was a little over ambitious. 

If you missed the first two check out our Q tip Snowmen paintings and our Cherrios Christmas trees. 

For our third craft we made giant Popsicle stick snowflakes. 

I think they are technically called craft sticks but you get what we mean.

I had a bunch of step by step pics of the kids making them but I can't find them anywhere. 

Luckily they are super easy.

First we painted the craft sticks with white and silver paint. 

Once they were dry I glued them into the snowflake shape.

Then I let the kids decorate their snowflake with glue and we sprinkled glitter on top.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy (as Mackenzie would say). 

Then we stuffed them into our Christmas tree as decoration.

Festive and fun. 

Cherrios Christmas trees

Yesterday we made craft number two...

Cherrio Christmas trees. 

 All you need are

-Cherrios

-paper

-ribbon

-glue

First I pre cut a christmas tree shape and star out of cardstock for each of the kids and trimmed off a few pieces of ribbon from my stash.

 Then I let the kids glue the star to the top of the tree and the ribbon on as decoration.

And lastly we glued Cherrios onto the trees as "ornaments". 

I put dots of glue down for the kids to make it a little (less) messy. 

My kids l.o.v.e. glue. 

And there you have it. 

Another fun and easy Christmas craft to do with the kids. 

Happy crafting!

Q tip painting (snowman)

Yay! It's Thanksgiving break!  

A week off school (and school drop off/pick up) deserves celebrating.

I asked Kenzie what she wanted to do during the week off.

her answer....

crafts. 

Lots of crafts. 

So I told her we could do one every day. 

Today we made a snowman painting using Q tips.

Super easy and it was all stuff we already had at home. 

Just Q tips, paint and paper.

I drew the outline of the snowman and his hat onto the paper lightly with a crayon and they did the rest. 

Even Maddie and Wesley were able to do it. 

I love how all of ours turned out unique. 

I'm trying to find the perfect place to display them. 

And since I'm going for the Mom of the year award today we also painted finger nails...Christmas theme (of course). 

Do your kids have the whole week off school too?

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Hope you guys had a great day celebrating Jesus' birthday! 

We sure did! 

A baby update, the best breakfast punch recipe and more coming soon!

Christmas Traditions

Christmas is my favorite time of the year.

I love everything about it.

The lights, the smells, the food, the traditions and most importantly celebrating Jesus' birthday.

Oh and me and Mackenzie's birthdays too.

This year things have been a little different than usual (with bed rest and all).

But we still managed to do a few of our favorite Christmas traditions.

And a few of our usuals will just have to make a come back next year when things are back to normal. 

Anyways I thought I'd share some of our favorite Christmas traditions with you.

And I'd love to hear about some of yours! 

Countdown to Christmas with books

This year we bought this one to add to our collection.

One of our favorite traditions is celebrating Saint Nicholas Day! 

We pick out a family and secretly drop off a bunch of presents (and a note telling them about Jesus).
Read about the details here and here.

Christmas Cookies
Every year one of our favorite Christmas traditions is making cookies for all of our neighbors. We usually spend the whole day baking and then deliver them all as a family once Daddy is home. It's always fun to be able to bless the neighbors we already know and a great way to meet new ones. I mean who doesn't like yummy cookies and Christmas treats!
*We usually try to do our baking the first week of December before everyone is over sugary treats.

Nativity Sets for the Kids.

Read the post here about why we love them.

We have this one my mom made many moons ago, THIS fisher price one, THIS Veggie Tale one and THIS awesome Playmobile one that we scored as a white elephant gift last year.

We keep them in container in our family room for easy access. 

Christmas Morning Breakfast

Before Madelyn came along we used to spend Christmas day driving from one house to another to visit all of our family. We loved seeing everyone but we felt like we spent half the day in the car so last year we started a new family tradition. We decided to invite Aaron's parents and sisters and my parents and  brother all over to our place for Christmas morning breakfast and to open presents from one another. Since our kids wake up really early we open all of our gifts as a family before everyone comes over. It's so great to see all of our family and be able to stay at home. It's one of our new favorite traditions.

Wrapping Paper

This is a secret I learned from my mom...buy a roll of wrapping paper for each kid and wrap all of their presents in their wrapping paper (ex. blue snowflakes for Wesley, red snowmen for Mackenzie, etc.). That way Christmas morning you know who gets which presents but the kids wait in anticipation to find out which are theirs. Plus it eliminates the need for gift tags (and kids peeking into packages ahead of time to get a look at what's inside). 

The Minivan Express 

I just saw THIS on Pinterest and thought it would be so much fun! Definitely adding it to the list for next year! 

And if you are looking for some last minute holiday things to make I thought I'd attach some of my previous holiday tutorials. 

1. Felt Initial ornaments
2. Birch wreath
3. "Let it snow" ornaments
4. Ruffle Fabric Christmas ornament

What are some of your favorite Christmas traditions?

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! 

Love,

The Sellars

Aaron, Kristin, Mackenzie (5), Wesley (3 1/2), Madelyn (19 months) 

and baby Hudson (due March 26th 2013)

It's beginning to look a lot like...

Christmas!!

My husband is the best. 

He's a holiday purest. 

You know the kind of person who doesn't like to listen to Christmas music or even think about Christmas until after Thanksgiving.

I however, am not.

Not at all. 

If I had it my way it would be Christmas all year long.

In fact I've been listening to Christmas music since November 1st.

Yes it's true. Don't judge. 

For the past week I have been begging Aaron to put up the Christmas decorations. 

And this weekend he finally gave in and decorated for us! 

Luckily he had 3 big helpers who were just as excited as me to decorate!

And although it was really hard for me to just sit back and watch they did a great job. 

My view from the couch just got so much better! 

Merry Christmas!

Oh and Happy almost Thanksgiving :)

December

December is my favorite month of the year. 

3 very important birthday are celebrated every December (Mackenzie, JESUS, and me) which probably has something to do with my love for the month but I also love all the lights, Christmas music, decorations, festivities, Winter Dream Tea Lattes, etc. 

It's such a fun time of year. 

Here's a quick look at some of the holiday fun we have had over the past couple weeks. 

Love these 3 little cuties. 

Wesley made his first debut on the big stage for our woman's Bible study Christmas performance.

He and Mackenzie were both so excited and adorable.  

We went to a "Happy Birthday Jesus" party that some of my friend's threw.

My kids are still talking about it.  

I enjoyed my fair share of this yummy goodness. 

Despite my efforts to keep her little forever she keeps growing. 

We borrowed Aaron's shaving cream and made some snow art. 

We went to our friend's annual fancy dinner party. 

It's another big reason I love December.

Great food, great friends, 

lots of laughing (aren't these the coolest paper masks you have ever seen?!), 

and the best white elephant gifts ever. 

(Yes that is a live lobster).

Mackenzie had another Christmas performance.

This time at big church. 

And she was definitely the cutest one there

(I may be a little bias).

We had a Christmas party with our Community Group from church and managed to get an almost complete group picture. 

This year we had Aaron's parents and my parents over on Christmas morning. 

It was awesome to be able to celebrate Jesus with some of our favorite people. 

and as always we were spoiled with lots of awesome and generous gifts. 

Oh and we visited Santa and Mrs. Claus. 
It was a great and fun filled December!