Advent Fun

I posted about this last year, but still love it, so here it is again. An Advent Joke Tree. This is a fun and easy craft that will take you less than 1/2 hour and your kids will LOVE it. All you need is a single sheet of 25 jokes (each joke on its own line), a piece of green construction paper, an exacto knife, and buttons or small plastic jewels.

All you do is form the construction paper into a cone and tape it together. You may want to cut off the bottom to make it stand even. Then make 25 slits in the sides with an exacto knife.
Then cut your jokes into thin strips (leaving white space on the front or back end). Then attach a small button or jewel to that white space.



Next, slide the jokes into the slits of the "tree", pulling from the inside to help. The inside will look like this.
Tada! An Advent Joke Tree.
Each day you child can pull a joke and read it. Then will then repeat it to all their friends at school and be the hit of the playground!

It was Inevitable

4 yr old boy + playground equipment = trip to the emergency room

Frankly I'm surprised it took this long. Big Man has always been a climber, jumper, etc. In other words, a normal 4 year old boy.

On Saturday, he fell off a some playground equipment (you know those thingys that are like a fireman pole with a loopy thing around it??) - kind of like this:

and he used his left arm to brace himself.

15 minutes later when I arrived at the emergency room with him, and unlatched his car seat, I felt his arm for the first time (DH was with him at the playground). EWWWW. His forearm was literally in pieces held together by skin. It was really gross and shaped like an S in the absolutely wrong direction. A 6'+ 250lb+ orderly at the ER nearly threw up. It was really awful. According to the doc, "an acute transverse fracture of both the radius and ulna with significant angulation of the distal fracture fragments resulting in deformity of the forearm." ick

But amazingly, he didn't need surgery. The orthopedic surgeon was able to get it back in place, and gave him this lovely cast. (Spiderman was added by Big Man's Preschool teacher!).

He was a real trooper and is already running around like a champ. In two weeks we go back and will take yet another set of x-rays to see how it is coming along. Hopefully will continue to be good.

Exercise Your Civic Duty

If you have ever criticized a politician.

If you have ever complained about the government.

If you have any stake in how you country/state/city/school board/local government is run.

Then VOTE. please.

Christmas is Coming!!!

I have used Shutterfly for photos every since K was born in 2002. I love it. I really do. There picture quality is great, the delivery is pretty fast, and they have great products. And it is so easy to share great photos with friends and family.

We just recently sent out Halloween cards (yes, I know - WHO does that?) and they were great.
Now I am looking at their amazing selection of Christmas cards. One thing I love about Shutterfly is that they allow you to use multiple pictures. With 3 kids, getting a good group shot is iffy at best. This way I can put a bunch of pictures on my cards, and everyone will look good in at least one! Many other providers only have limited options for multiple photos.

Right now, I LOVE these (not my photos!):
These (and more) can be found on their website here.

If you don't celebrate Christmas, they also have gorgeous Hannukah cards as well!



Or if you are like my beloved MIL, you will get your cards out late, and perhaps this will come in handy!! (hee hee)



I am also thinking about some of these for Christmas gifts:
You can personalize each and every month - with more than one photo! And for less than $20 (closer to $10 if you buy multiples!) - how can you lose? (watch out grandparents!)

So yes, Shutterfly will give me 50 free cards for this post. But if you know me IRL - you certainly know how much I love Shutterfly, as you have received countless pictures, cards, etc with their logo from me. I have tried other services, but always come back to Shutterfly.

I have been using their photos to scrapbook for years. And although I am a paper scrapbooker - I have also cheated and use their amazing, quick, professional, easy digital scrapbooking services for some of my albums. If you go on vacation with others, it is the easiest way to put all your pictures together. And PAINLESS! And the albums are beautiful - complete with my own captions and LOTS of photos per page (the way I like it!)

So that is my tip to get ready for Christmas. Visit Shutterfly and find lots of easy solutions!


This post sponsored by Shutterfly. Do you want 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly? Click here to go to Shutterfly for information on how you can get 50 free cards this holiday season, and make sure to select me as the referral source!