December Adventures

The time has finally come for me to decorate the shelves for Christmas! I just love these built-in we made! I love seeing all my Santa's in one place but also, the center of the mantle is where we put the Nativity sets. We still center around Christ.

We got the Christmas tree all set up and decorated but just 5 minutes after having it all put together the top half of the white lights went out! GRRR. Oh well, It's gonna stay that way.

We had our annual FHE activity of writing and mailing our letters to Santa. Still love our little town!

To finish off the night we went out for ice cream at Dairy Queen. And LOOK Ellie knows where it's at! Dipping her fries in ice cream. She must be watching her mom.

Dan and I like to make a homemade gift for each of the kids every year. One year was wooden cars, another was a rocking horse, etc. This year we decided to make personalized treasure chests. We got the idea after Halloween and seeing how much candy each of the kids got. We didn't really want them to eat it all at once and we didn't want the fight of keeping them out of each other's stash either. So we decided a treasure chest that could be locked up was a good idea.

We added hinges, hardware and a personalized vinyl decal on the top of each box and then filled them with each of the kid's Halloween candy. We plan on putting the key in each of the kids stockings at Grandma and Grandpa Glenn's house with a note saying they'll find the surprise their key goes to under the Christmas tree back at home.

Just a picture of Emma eating her morning toast. Love this girlie girl!

Ellie has officially finished her training for picture taking! Just look at this cheeser! Every time the camera comes out now she cheeses like this. It is sooo stinkin' cute! I love her wrinkled up nose too.

Not much time passes before we find yet ANOTHER project. This wall is getting a major makeover! We are wanting to give Kiera her own bedroom, but order for that to happen my craft stuff has to find a new home. So we are planning on turning our front room into my craft room/Glenn Family Crafting studio.

We got quotes on how much it would cost to have custom cabinets built for the space and the cost was WAY out of our budget. But I am not one to give up and I just happened to get lucky when I saw a lady post these kitchen cabinets. She had just remodled her kitchen and was selling her old cabinets for $500 PLUS she'd deliver them! Couldn't pass that up.

Here is what they look like all put together. I am so excited to fill them up. I plan on painting them white to match the base boards and crown molding, but that project will have to wait til the weather warms up enough to where I can keep kids outside while I paint.

This is Emma's last year in preschool! She'll be a kindergartner next fall! So we are enjoying this time while we can. For Christmas her preschool had a mommy-and-me day where they made and decorated "ginger bread" houses.

Our little masterpiece!

MMMMM FUDGE! MMMM PEANUT BRITTLE! I love this time of year and making candy and delivering it to our friends and neighbors.

And you just can't make candy and not lick the spoon. YUMMMM!

Another Family tradition of going to the Lights of Christmas. This year we went with Dan's company. It is always fun to see the lights and eat yummy food. I was just happy it wasn't as cold or stormy like it was last year.

Dan's work gave him tickets for our whole family to go see a dinosaur exhibit that came to Everett. Not really Christmasy but was still fun.

Ellie was not a fan up close, can you tell? She was fine if she got to see it from a distance though.

 

Time for Emma's preschool Christmas program. They kids were sooo cute in their little reindeer hats and Christmas light name tags. They did an awesome job singing all the songs, and Emma plans on singing a couple of them at our Christmas eve party at the Drapers' house.

I drew pictures of all the kids and sent them in to have their annual dinner plates made. The kids love getting their plates every year, and I have fun putting my drawing skills to work again. I need to take the time to sit down and draw more. I miss it.

Kiera and Ethan also sang at their school Christmas Program.

 

For Dan's b-day in November he got a bunch of Star Wars chocolate molds. So we put them to good use and made chocolates for all his Home Teaching families. 

Nothing says Merry Christmas like Han Solo in Carbonite!

The kids got to sleep out under the Christmas Tree. Its a tradition that comes from Dan's side. He did it as a boy.

Now here's a project that I think outshines all other projects we've done so far! It's a gift for Dan's mom. Every year we have our annual Glenn Family Reunion at Fort Steven's and every year Dan's mom puts out a treasure hunt for all the grandkids on each day we're there. So we thought we should tell her thank you for all the work and effort she puts into the reunion every year and give her a proper treasure chest. Steve contributed the the walnut and we bought some white maple so the two colors would contrast and pop next to each other.

This is how we laminated all the pieces for the top together. One board at a time. this probably took the longest since we had to have each board dry over night.

Dan then used a hand planer and rounded the top of the chest into a dome and we did corner inserts and smoothed them all out

My favorite part is putting on the finish. It just deepens the colors so nicely and transforms the whole project

I was very picky about the hardware we used on this project. I was not going to settle for anything! It has to match and it had to look like it was meant to be. Aren't those hinges just scrumptious!

I found handles to match too! They were a lucky find since everything else I wanted would have to have been shipped and would not have made it in time.

And the final touch was the lock! We found one online that we thought look the most authentic to what we think a pirates treasure box would have on it. It even came with a set skeleton keys! Ryan bought it and had it shipped to our house so we could have it on there for her Christmas Morning.

She's Going to love it!!!!