18!

Mmmm It was wonderful to wake up to the fresh smell of pine! I love our real christmas tree and even though the pine needles are all over my carpet I am really glad we decided to get a real one this year!

Today was teos turn to open the train today and our activity for today was:

Read the christmas tree book and make lanterns!

'but we already made lanterns to decorate the close' Donald declared.

I read a friends blog and saw she had decorated her close with paper lanterns and thought it was a brilliant idea so I did that with the kids for some extra fun outwith the advent activities. But todays activity wasn't paper lanterns! We were going to use empty Jars, glue on lots of colourful tissue paper and light a candle inside it!

I'll explain that shortly, First We were going to look at the book!

I was just about to sit down and read it to them but Donald beat me to it!

I read it after Donald since Teo hadn't sat down to hear it while Donald was reading it. It was a delightful short story about a sad little tree that nobody could see until he fell asleep and some animals came to decorate him!

We had to rush to get Donald to drama and Joy to dance after that but Teo took the book with him! He read it to me in the car it was so sweet!

Unfortunately due to adverse weather conditions Joys dance class was cut short, atleast Donald got his full drama lesson! we carefully drove home through the snow and while daddy started lunch we started our lanterns! Well I say we but at first the only one I could get to the table was Donald!

Eventually I talked Joy into it

Teo loves helping his big sister!

Donald and Joy were having to share one pritt stick which was making it awkward and putting them off doing it at all but I convinced Joy to sit beside Donald to make sharing easier.

Then I brought out the PVC glue which was a mistake because Joy started squirting big blobs of it onto the tissue! I came up with a better idea, I spread the PVC glue all over the jar and told her all she had to do was stick on the tissue paper!

SUCCESS!

Donald was losing interest, the pritt stick was never a great idea, I did the same to his Jar with the PVC glue as I did for Joy and he finished it in no time!

two beautiful lanterns to light up the room!

We might make some more with Teo later!