December Doings

 The first weekend of December the church in Maple Valley holds there annual Nativity event which I absolutely love. This year Paige and I went together and I loved spending this one and one time with my little girl enjoying the Christmas season. The gym is filled with all different kinds of nativities. There is also a room where you can dress up with things from the nativity and have your picture taken. There is a craft room for the kids and a refreshment room. Paige didn't want to dress up and get our picture taken but we did everything else.

We first walked around all the nativities. Paige loved pointing out baby Jesus in them all. These pictures are super blurry since I took them with my phone but it was so beautiful.

 After we saw all the nativities we walked down the hallway with pictures from Christ's life. Walking down that hallway, there was such a reverent spirit about it. At the end of the hallway they have the empty tomb set up and we got to go inside and I loved talking to Paige about the importance of the resurrection and because of Jesus Christ we can live again.

We then headed to the craft room and spent quite a bit of time. Paige loves doing crafts!

 We each enjoyed two cookies before heading home. It was such a fun little outing with my cutie.

 She did quite a few crafts. Two that she did there was a cute Christmas card that had trees on it with stickers to decorate it. I was going to take a picture of it but then I sent it to my Grandma yesterday before I did. I know she will enjoy it. She also did this snowflake. Paige is all about doing things in a pattern.

 This craft we just took with us and did it at home. It is a paper chain countdown to Christmas. She has three other advent calendars that she enjoys doing every morning.

 The next day after going to the Nativity event Paige decided that she wanted to make her own nativity. She first traced her feet and had me cut out the toes for all the different people and animals in her nativity and then she colored and taped and created the cutest little nativity. Left to right: sheep, shepard, donkey, Mary, baby Jesus, Joseph, another shepard, and another sheep with the cutest angel flying in the sky.

 Then on the 7th we got to celebrate Eliza's first birthday. She is the happiest little girl and we enjoyed her party. It was cute watching her eat her cupcake and then when it was time to open presents it was funny to watch all her siblings and cousins huddle around her "helping" her open all her presents. Paige loved that since she got to open presents for one of her favorite cousins.

 Two cute girl cousins- Paige absolutely adores Eliza.

 First taste.

 Starting to dig in.

 I think she liked it. :)

Happy birthday Eliza!

Jenga

 A couple of weeks ago we introduced Paige to the game Jenga. She absolutely loved it. She liked the suspense of it all and liked checking all the blocks to find a loose one. It was a fun little game night.

First game with daddy

Look at that cute face- happy and surprised that she didn't knock it all over.

 Then a couple turns later and the tower came tumbling down. :)

 Then a new game with mom.

 Both of us with our looks of concentration. :)

 Gotta find the perfect one.

 Only a matter of time until it came tumbling down.

I love this little family of mine!

Letters Y and Z

 We finished our little letter preschool activities this past week. I have learned to let Paige do more of her own work and let her creativity flow through the weeks. It was such a fun little project to help Paige learn her letters and associate words with that letter. Now with the holidays in full swing we will focus on holiday crafts until next year and I will have to think of other activities/crafts to do with her. Most days she creates her own things and I love seeing her mind go as she is creating her own masterpieces.

Here are the things she did the past two weeks for the letters Y and Z

First for Y she did You- she created a picture of herself.

Then she did yawn- Since about the letter M I have found pictures of the crafts online and had them all on a word document then Paige got to pick the one she could do for the day. She would just look at the picture and then create her own and that is exactly what she did for this yawn craft.

 Yo-Yo.

 Yarn- I cut out some long pieces of yarn and then she cut out the little pieces and glued them on the letter Y.

 And last she did a yak. I cut out the different pieces and then she assembled and glued it together and add the face.

 Then the next week was the letter Z. It was a pretty busy week but here are the few things we did for our last week. First she did a zinnia. I showed her a picture of the flower online and then she created her own.

 Zebra- oftentimes when Paige is creating something she uses tape instead of glue and that is what she did for her zebra.

 Next was a zipper.

 And last she did some zoo worksheets. She loves doing these kinds of things. We find workbooks that are preschool/kindergarten age and she will just do all the activities in them. This zoo packet I found on Pinterest and some of the things were trace the word zoo and the letter z, circle the numbers, follow the pattern, find which one is different, etc.

I love my smart, little girl and it was so fun coming up with different activities/crafts each week!

Letters W and X

 The past few weeks have been busy with Halloween, doctor visits, and just every day life but in the last few weeks we did letters W and X with lots of fun crafts.

First up- W

Watermelon- she wanted to paint one and color one

Another day she did wings- in this picture she is going "tweet, tweet" thus the weird face. :)

 Then another day she did a witch. She did most of this one by herself. She traced the hat and hands and I cut them out but she put it all together and drew the cute witch face.

 Then the last W craft we did was words. She got to type all the words she knows how to spell without help and we printed them out and glued them on the letter W.

 Then this past week we did the letter X. There weren't too many ideas that I could find online but here is what she did.

Xylophone- I cut out the different sizes of rectangles on white paper and then she traced the different rectangles on the different colored papers and then she cut them out and glued them on the X. The mallet was all her idea and she did it by herself.

 Then we did an X-ray. She traced her hands and I helped her glue on the Q-tips for bones.

 Like I said I was having a hard time thinking and finding X crafts so one day we did a fox since it had an X in it. She did everything for this one by herself.

 Then the last X craft we did was X ray fish.

Only a few letters left! And then I will have to figure out something else fun to do with my little girl. :)

Halloween

 This past Saturday was our ward trunk or treat and it was so much fun. This year the primary was in charge of it and I volunteered to help with the game/activity area. The activity day girls helped me out getting some of the games ready at our past activity and then I got to put together all the rest. I really enjoyed the whole process. It was simple enough so it wasn't overwhelming but I loved being creative and putting it all together.

On the back wall I had all the girls make spooky hands and I painted the sign for some decorations for the game/activity area.

One game was pumpkin bowling. I put jack-o-lantern faces on the orange cups and set them up in the tower and then had some cuties with faces also to be the bowling ball to knock down the towers.

 The next game was Halloween Bingo. The primary president got the bingo set and I got the cups with some apple jacks to be the game pieces.

 Then another person in the primary presidency got the things for this activity. It was tootsie pop ghosts.

 I loved putting together this next game-Halloween Tic-Tac-Toe. It took the longest to do but turned out so cute. The activity day girls helped me paint the first coat on all the rocks and then throughout the week I would add another coat until I was satisfied and then I added all the faces. I made three different ones and had pumpkins, ghosts, Frankensteins, black cats, and monsters.

 Another leader also got the things for this game- witch's cauldron toss.

 I also put together another table that had Halloween coloring and activity pages.

 And the last game area I made two Halloween versions of pin the tail. 

The first one I made was pin the teeth on Dracula.

 And the second one was pin the bolts on Frankenstein.

At the front of the room I had a guessing game that everyone could do when they first came into the party. We counted three different Halloween candies and whoever guessed the closest got the jar of candy.

 Another lady in the ward had made all these cute decorations for a school dance and what she kept we got to use for the ward party and they added the perfect touch and were so cute!

 We had a potluck dinner and while this was all going on the kids got to do the games/activity at their leisure. It was fun to put together all the games and then during the party not have to worry about any of it. Then after dinner all the kids did a costume parade around the gym.

Paige was a fairy for this party but for the parade she forgot to put her wings on.

 Brett the banana. :)

 She had fun going to all the cars and getting candy. I think it is all a bit overwhelming for her since it all happens so fast and she was pretty shy for it all. I know that she will do so much better speaking up when she goes trick or treating.

 Then yesterday was the big day-Halloween! In years past Paige has known what she wanted to be at the beginning of the month but this year for the ward party and for Halloween it was a last minute decision. For trick or treating this year she decided to be a buttery fly. It was Nona's idea to add the little antennas and I am so glad she thought of it because it added the perfect touch to Paige's costume.

 The trick-or-treating crew- a banana, a butterfly, a cheeseburger, and Santa and his little elf.

 I wasn't able to go with them trick or treating this year and I am sad I missed out but I knew that Paige would have so much fun. Nate said that she was so excited about it all and practically ran to each house and led the pack the entire way. She loved ringing the doorbells and Nate said that at every house she would say "Trick or Treat" and then once she got candy she would say "Thank You" and "Happy Halloween". I sad I missed out of that cuteness but she was so excited to show me all her candy when she got back.

 Leading the pack.

 She got tons of candy this year! (This is only half of it)

 Throughout the month of October Paige enjoyed doing lots of Halloween coloring pages and crafts. Here is what she decided to hang up and decorate our apartment with. I love my little artist!

 One day she even made me some coloring pages. She designed and drew out the coloring pages and then I colored them.

Happy Halloween!