I keep getting emails from people with questions about how I made the chalkboard Christmas tree I had hanging in my living room last Christmas.  I wasn't going to post about it because there's not really much to it, and I didn't have any good pictures of it, but when I mentioned that to my sister, it was Candice to the rescue because she had pictures of Ollie in front of it last Christmas.  How could I keep these to myself?

 Can you believe how tiny he was just a year ago?

 He was a stinker when we tried to take pictures so I'm so happy Candice caught a few!

What's that you say? You wanted a tutorial, and my cute baby photos did not make you forget.

It all started when we were staring at our big, empty living room walls and wishing we could buy a giant Christmas tree, but it was not it our remodellers' budget nor would have it been safe for Ollie.  Then I remembered this idea I saw for a chalk Christmas tree on a drop cloth, and I knew we could do a huge version so I was off to Lowe's to pick up a painters canvas drop cloth and chalkboard paint.  The only advice that I really have is to lay a cheap plastic drop cloth below because the paint will seep through the fabric onto whatever is underneath your drop cloth.  I only did one coat, because I didn't want to buy another pint of paint, but had I known we were going to keep this up and continue using it, I probably would have done a second coat.  The fabric soaks up a lot of paint so you'll need more then you think.

 Since my drop cloth was so big, I drew my Christmas tree while it was still laying down in our garage and just touched up any smudges after we hung it up.  So simple and cheap for such a big effect.

 By the time Valentine's Day rolled around, I still hadn't taken it down so I just washed it off and drew something new.  My advice for erasing is to first vacuum your old drawing to remove as much chalk as possible and it will be much easier to erase (I just use our shopvac).  After that I use a wet washcloth and wash everything else away.  Use lots of water and scrub lightly or you'll scrub off some paint like I did the first time.

 Now we use the chalk board for just about every holiday/party around here.

But I have to say last Christmas is my favorite

All the pictures with Ollie are by Candice (the rest obviously are not)

More to the story

There's so much want to remember about this Christmas (What? Christmas is long-gone and the last thing on your mind? Shocking!)

The way we made simple nativity scenes with the Activity Days Girls at church and Creed (forever thinking he is one of the 8 to 11 year-old girls) insisted on making his own (we only decorated the people and lucked out finding the stables at Target for $2.50)

 The way Creed's Mary looked starred eyed to say the least (I guess she just gave birthday afterall) and we carried those little people around all through the holidays.  I will forever treasure these sweet hand-drawn faces.

 The way Creed had to have this Rudolph hat, and I secretly had to have it too, because who can resist this?

 The way he proceeded to wear the hat all over.

 The way he was a dashing little wiseman in the live nativity at church

 The way it was the sweetest nativity I've ever seen.

 The way the reverence was smashed when they ushered all the cast onto the stage for a the last song and Creed desperately needed to use the potty.  I was wrestling with Ollie in the back so this is the only photo that we have, but oh, I wish you could have seen him hopping and holding his crotch through the whole song while earnestly singing with a look of desperation until Larry rescued him and ushered him to a bathroom the moment the song ended.

 The way both boys fell in love with their annual new Christmas ornament (Creed is oddly obsessed with the short cartoon Mickey and the Clock Cleaners, and watch are the chances we would come across this ornament?)

 The way he was not so thrilled in many of the holiday photos I took, and already has the look of a teenager obliging his crazy mom.

 The way Ollie knew which ornament was his and we found it in a new spot every day because he couldn't resist holding his Santa.

 The way the boys and I had a few adventures on our own like going on a scavenger hunt to find all the creepy elves around Gardner Village (Creed loved it so much that I swear he is already planning our trip back next year)

 The way their annual new Christmas books were loved to pieces.

 The way we came home with a million, zillion cookies that we planned to giveaway after my bookclub's annual Christmas dinner/cookie exchange and then we ate almost all of them ourselves.

 The way Creed glowed at his preschool Christmas program.

 And the way they still make four-year-olds sing the most random Christmas songs you've never heard of with a few classics mixed in.

 The way Creed was bursting with so much excitement as he left out cookies and milk for Santa that I thought he'd never sleep and he was out almost instantly.

 The way Christmas was on Sunday so we saw what Santa brought and looked through our stockings and then went to church without opening a single present and there were no complaints.

 The way Creed was thrilled to get exactly what he wanted.

 And ollie was happy to sit by bemused and not open a gift.

 The way we went to my parents' and met up with all my siblings families to open our presents and we could only get Ollie to open one.  After that if you approached him, he'd yell, "No presents, no!" and push them away so this bin of his gifts sat in our kitchen for the next two days until he got interested.

Christmas has always been a wonderful time of the year to me, but Christmas with kids is the best!

What I did wrong this Christmas

You know I love advent calendars.  This year we pulled out an advent calendar that I made a few years ago by adding numbers to a set of Ikea gift boxes and using command velcro strips to stick them on the wall in our entryway.

We usually just add a slip of paper to each day stating the Christmas related activity we'll do that day (drink hot chocolate and watch how the Grinch Stole Christmas, drive around the neighborhood to look at Christmas lights and leave an award for our favorite house, attend a live nativity etc.). After Christmas last year, I picked up a bunch of little Christmas things on uber clearance to put in our advent calender this year.  I had a few things that didn't make the picture, but I didn't have a trinket every day. Each box always had an activity listed in it (and i love having them in containers that I can sneak open and switch up, in fact, I filled each box the night before we opened it so I didn't have to worry about peeking) and sometimes it had a small treat or one of the trinkets.

 Sometimes the paper and trinket were just waiting in the box, but often Creed had to do some kind of activity to find it. Like follow quickly scribbled clues on a treasure hunt around the house to discover our activity for the day.

 Or follow a piece of yarn winding through the house.

 Which made it easy to gift items too big to fit in the box we opened that day.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't an epic fail, Creed loved the whole experience and was eager to open a box each day, and he was grateful and gracious and sweet, but the more I thought about it, the more I think I was going about things the wrong way.  Yes, it was fun, and I think Creed will remember it, but I think it set the wrong tone for our holidays.  There's already so much focus on the material side of Christmas, the last thing Creed and Ollie needed was to be getting more gifts each day up until Christmas.  How can I expect them to be focused on giving and to not have a case of the gimmes when I'm giving them gifts every day?  Ollie was oblivious and Creed actually handled things really well, but I think it would be so much better to put a part of the Christmas story in the advent every day or maybe every day should have some service or small item that the boys will have to help me figure out how to GIVE that day.  A few of the activities in the advent involved giving, like picking out toys for a sub-for-Santa program, but it wouldn't be hard to think of something small the boys could be involved in every day (Drive around on a cold day to find a Salvation Army beller ringer and drop off change and give the ringer some hand warmers, shovel a neighbors driveway, make teacher Christmas gifts, etc.). At any rate, it was sort of a missed opportunity to help the boys focus on the true meaning of Christmas, and I pledge to better next year.

I tell myself the boys are little and Larry and I have more time to figure out this parenting thing while they are too little to remember our mistakes very well, right?

The Post about the Stuff

I like to do a quick post every year about what we got for Christmas so we can remember years down the road.  This year there were no requests for big ticket items, in fact, I couldn't think of anything that I really wanted at all.  Since my whole family was in town, we got to spend Christmas all together which hasn't happened in ages.  I guess I was so excited that I forgot to take pictures, but my dad took this picture of the lineup on Christmas morning before we said a prayer and headed down to open presents.

 Since Oliver is more prone to have seizures when he is short on sleep, we decided not to wake him up early.  We told everyone else they could go on without us and we would join them when our kids woke up on their own (they are not early rizers), but they all waited.  Creed and Logan were bursting with excitement.

I don't think Oliver opened a single present, but he really loved the Wheelie Bug Santa brought him. On a sidenote- this is the ONLY picture I took of Ollie Christmas morning and I only took two of Creed because I was determined to enjoy the moment, but now I need to see if I can snag some pictures from my dad.

Each year, in addition to fulfilling the boys requests, I try to get them each at least one item that I love and want to have around forever.  Something cool/beautiful that they probably wouldn't request on their own, but I think they will enjoy so it's worth the splurge.  I found an amazing deal on Hanno the Gorilla, a wooden posable toy that is supposed to be practically indestructable so that's what we got Ollie.

As you know, all of Creed's dreams came true when he got Belle and Tinkerbelle so he didn't start opening presents until much later, but it didn't take him long to catch up with everyone else.

He got a lot of fun, small gifts like more automoblox (which are beloved around here) and a Fisher Price record player (which is not as cool as the real vintage version because it doesn't have bumps on the records that make the music box work, it just has an electronic MP3 player in it that recognizes the records.)

Scaredy Squirrel is one of his favorite book characters so the Scaredy Squirrel puppet was a big hit.

He also really likes playing with this stacking Cactus from PlanToys.  No one can resist playing with it when they walk by.

Larry got a bunch of boring stuff like clothes that he picked out himself, but he did get a nice leather man-bag since he finished his fellowship and has a real job.

I got a few more of the clothbound penguin classics that I've been collecting.  They are so very pretty.

Larry totally surprised me with an Instax mini, which takes instant pictures like a polaroid, but the pictures are credit card size and the camera is nice and light compared to my polaroids and the film is a lot less expensive.

He also got me a zoku popsicle maker.  It makes popsicles in minutes, and I can't wait to put it to good use this summer.

My Mom & Dad actually printed a hardbound book of my blog which was such a fun surprise.  I love paging through it.  My mom also got me a rainbow of pre-wound bobbins.  Have you tried these?  You just tear off the paper and stick them in your bobbin case without winding them onto a bobbin.  I hate loading bobbins, and I never seem to have the right color on hand so I was really excited about it.  Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?

I love buying people gifts and pondering over what might make someone really happy, but this year, I'd have to say my family trumped me.  Everything I received was so very perfect and much appreciated!