Then, heading over to join the big crowd outside the house in Oriental Parade, to try and make enough noise to make the sound activated Christmas lights light up.

Watching the Nativity scene in the Joy to the World DVD on Christmas morning on our bed with the kids.

The kids made Christmas presents for the family this year. I loved seeing the excitement of the giver and receiver. A lot of thought and effort was put into the making of the gifts over the past couple of months. It was really special to see the kids show genuine appreciation when they received the presents. Probably one of my favourite parts of the day.

Our special banquet breakfast (lots of favourite food and drinks – kind of like our tradition of the birthday breakfast in bed, but we get to enjoy it all together, and it is at the table…rather than the bed….hehehe.)

Visiting family and loved ones.

Looking 4 months pregnant after finishing the amazing Christmas dinner that my mother prepared!

From our family to yours…may you have a MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

I wanted to have some sort of countdown, but I wanted to have somewhere to hold the pieces of the Nativity scene we were creating.

Then I remembered I had lots of paper bags. So I literally put a paper bag through the printer, and printed the number “1″ on the bag. (I used Pea Courtney font from kevinandamanda.com.) I was ready for the first day of December!

Boy, kids are easy to please. My children were so excited about having an advent calendar. I quote, “This is going to be the best countdown ever!”

In the bag, I put in the first pieces of the Nativity scene, an activity to do that day, and a scripture about Jesus which included something to do, that went along with that scripture.

Later on that day I completed the rest of the bags. I “zooshed” them up by printing the numbers in colour. (I did these in Publisher, and would be happy to forward the file to anyone.)

Then I just used some left over wooden pegs and satin/silky type rope to hang it from my curtain rails.

All done!

If you need a bit of inspiration on what activities to do with the kids this month, Sarah from Catching the Magic, Angie from ModernMake [via Mousehouse ] and eighteen25 have listed their wish list of activities on their blogs.

If you liked the idea of Katherine Marie Photography’s Random Act of Christmas Kindness calendar, then you’ll love that Cheri from I Am Momma Hear Me Roar has made a Good Deed Advent, with a focus on tasks that can be done (sometimes with a little help) by a 3 year old.

First…go on the internet and drool over all the wonderful projects that
she can’t do because she hasn’t allowed enough time.

Next…decide on something simple, age appropriate and Christ centred.

We are going to be putting together this Navitity scene by adding to it each day.

We will also be doing different activities each day…reading about Jesus, random acts of kindness, showing love to family members and friends in different ways, crafts, baking etc.

Happy 1st December everyone!

(Go check out Katherine Marie Photography’s blog, she is counting down to Christmas by doing a Random Act of Kindness each day!)

This birthday tradition is another one that we have decided to adopt from my hubby’s side of the family. My hubby remembers it being a big deal, because it may have been the first time he went to a restaurant. He did the ordering etc and felt very grown up.

The other tradition that we also do on their 8th birthday is give them their own set of scriptures and hymn book. She was very excited about her scriptures and getting her breakfast in bed (you can read about our birthday traditions here)

Then it is her baptism on Saturday

All she kept saying today is “I don’t feel 8!”. In my mind she just seems to be growing right before my eyes….

Now that we have been parents for 9 years, we have come to realise that we have some of our own birthday traditions that have developed over the years. They are simple ideas, but our children really look forward to them.

Breakfast in Bed

My hubby’s family do birthday breakfasts in bed. I just love the idea of making the day special, right from the beginning of the day!

We make a special breakfast and bring it to the child’s room to eat in bed (or eat next to their bed, depending on their age).

Apart from having their favourite breakfast food and treats, we seemed to have accidently started a food tradition with some foods making an appearance year after year: having a piece of cake with a candle that they blow out on their breakfast tray, “pink milk”/strawberry milk, and strawberries and chocolate sauce.

We sing happy birthday as we enter their room, and give presents at this time too.

Our birthday girl woke up before us, and choose to clean her room to get ready for her breakfast in bed!! She has done this before, once she waited patiently with a crown on her head for us to arrive!

Special Family Activity

The birthday child gets to choose a special activity to do as a family.

E.g. We recently did bowling for one child, and bungee for another child. Last night we went go-carting for my 9 year old’s activity choice and my youngest daughter has asked to go to the pool for her birthday, which is coming up in a few days.

We spend the Saturday closest to their birthday doing fun things together, and then we have the special activity.

The children get excited about which activity they are going to choose next. Will it be laserstrike? Go to the farm? So many choices!!

What birthday traditions have you developed in your family?

If you have turned your back on restaurants because you now have young children that wouldn’t last past “getting the menu”, you may want to give Yum Char a go!

We have a family tradition of going to Yum Char on New Years Day with my extended family. It is a tradition that definitely does not fit under the New Years Resolution: Eat in moderation!

“Yum Char” is offered at specialised Chinese restaurants, usually during lunchtime. You sit at a table, and then a waiters brings a selection of food to you.  You get to choose whether you will take a plate or two, or wave them on. It is a continual flow of food. It is great if you like to try a little bit of everything, as each small plate contains 3 or 4 of each item.

The great things about yum char are:

• no wait time! you don’t need to keep the children occupied while you wait for your order to be taken, wait for the food to arrive and wait for others to finish eating (can you tell we learned about yum char after doing it the hard way!).
• a variety of food! crispy chicken drumsticks, spring rolls, stuffed eggplant, bbq pork buns…yum yum yum!
• it is child friendly! it has a bustling atmosphere that you feel right at ease with your children.
• and you get dessert come around while you are eating the main! you gotta love that! hehehe

At a Yum Char restaurants it is common to see families with young children, couples, bunches of teenagers all coming from different ethnic backgrounds.

So next time why not give yum char a go, and then come back and tell me all about it! Our favourite one at the moment is Grand Century in Wellington….always busy!

Beware of over spinning the lazy susan!

When Summer rolls around and it looks like the sun will stay radiant and warm during the evening, we try to head down to the beach to have a picnic dinner.

So today, we packed up the kids, picked up our fish ‘n’ chips and headed to Plimmerton Beach.

I watched over my youngest as she spent her time finding rocks.

(she has taken one to bed with her!)

She loved chasing the “mama duckies” (aka seagulls).

Hubby took the older kids into the water and had a great time.

Thanks Summer for gifting us with a beautiful evening

Kindness Tree, Good deeds Tree, Goodwill Tree, Service Tree whatever you want to call it (we don’t actually have a name for it!) this is a tradition that we started in our family that has really brought the spirit of Christmas into our home.

The idea came from the first day of my advent calendar I once had: “Gather 24 ornaments for your Christmas tree and place them in a basket under the tree. Each time you complete an act of service, put an ornament on the tree.”

I took a spare little tree we had, and the spare decorations we weren’t using on the main tree and placed them in our family room. Whenever we noticed someone doing something nice for someone else, we would say “go and put an ornament on the tree!” The kids love it, and I love catching the kids being good!

Just this morning, my 7 year old was feeling sad about something, so my almost 3 year old came over to her and rubbed her back and mumbled something in toddler-speak, it sounded something like “oh, are you ok?”. So we told her she could go and put an ornament on the tree (Which is great, because she has a real fetish with ornaments! 2 years ago she crawled and pulled off all the ornaments off the bottom of the tree. Last year she took bite marks out of the styrofoam ones. This year, she picks them off the tree like apples and carries them in her wicker basket!)

So if you are upgrading your tree and decorations, this could be a wonderful way to make use of those items! You could even make and advent tree with numbered ornaments or a Gratitude tree where you would say what you were grateful for, then put an ornament up. The possibilities are endless!

What does 20 children + water guns + lots of transformers make?

My son’s 5th birthday party!!

The “big bash” was bigger than what we normally have.  With 20 children ranging from babies to my son’s 8 year old sister, it was crazy, but a lot of fun. I am so grateful to all my Playcentre friends and our family for helping out!

In our family we have big birthday parties when our children turn 1 and 5. The rest of the time we have special family outings and a small party in the evening.

At the party:

• We started out with a treasure hunt that my older daughters ran. They hid the letters from my son’s name all around Playcentre. On arrival the children got a card with my son’s name on it. They had to find the letters and match it to the letters on the card. Once they did this, they went to one of my daughters to get a little bag of lollies.
• My hubby put a Megatron mask on (the bady from transformers) and ran around while the children took turns spraying him with water guns. Once they hit him (over and over again! hehehe) they got their party favours which was their own novelty cup and a curly strawer.
• Then it was time for afternoon tea – yummy fruit platter: strawberries, watermelon, grapes and pineapple. Fairy bread and chocolate hail bread. Marshmallows. Ham & Pineapple Pizzas. Popcorn….I think that’s it?
• For the adults: Spinach & Feta dip with green, red, yellow & orange capsicums, carrots and rice crackers. Beetroot & cream cheese dip with crostinis. We also had some yummy scrummy gourmet pizza .
• After the kids ate they did a lot of running around outside.
• Pass the parcel was next – as you can imagine the parcel started out quite big!

• All the children were eager to get their presents opened, and my son was eager to open them! Thank you for all the lovely presents!

• Singing happy birthday was at the very end and we got to eat some birthday cake! yeah!

My favourite part had to be watching my hubby running around and getting sprayed by the water guns – what a trooper!

TIPS:

• Get a good venue. We used our Playcentre which could easily accomodate 20 children sitting around a table.
• Have enough adults to help. Hubby and I were lucky that so many lovely friends and family members helped out in the kitchen, games, and cleaning up. They really helped make the party such an enjoyable experience!
• Have a plan and keep it moving. Know which order you are doing the games etc and keep and eye on the time. Because we choose to have the present opening as an activity, I put pass the parcel before it to help gather the children inside.
• Keep it simple and special. Everything that happened on the day was a balance of how much time we were able to put into it, how much money it would cost, and the flow of the party on the day. I think whatever we do for our children, in whatever form that may take, I’m sure they enjoy it!