Busy Week!

I love the last week of school before Christmas vacation starts!! Don't you?? There is always a ton of activity. This Friday, all three of the kids have class parties. Usually, I do a small gift for each child in their classes...almost always home made. Last year, I bought a couple of ornament making kits thinking that this could be something I could accomplish while recovering from chemo and resting! WRONG!! Once I took them out of the package, I realized that I had bitten off more than I could chew! Thankfully, my wonderful friend Kathy (who does marvelous bead work) came for a visit earlier this year! She agreed to take the kits back home with her (California) and put them together in her spare time! I received a package in the mail a few weeks later with all of the ornaments beautifully put together! I can never thank you enough, Kathy! There are three designs here.....snowflakes, crosses and "joy" hangers!

As I was getting ready to wrap them....I decided I should count them...just to make sure we had enough! Good thing I did....we were short by 4! I needed 48 and only had 44. So I we took a side trip down to Hobby Lobby after school today. It was "slim pickins" as far as Christmas crafts go. I was able to find these cute candy canes that you can make out of buttons! Since I only needed 4, I figured I could handle this. I should have taken a picture of them before I wrapped them...but here is what the package looked like! To top it all off...all of the Christmas crafts were 50% off! I only paid $4 for this kit (and it makes 12)!

I'm still in the process of getting these done! I've taken care of Nathan and Amelia's classes. I'll finish off Olivia's tomorrow. I added a Christmas pencil and put them in decorative bags (very cheap at Walmart)! Now I just have to figure out how to get 48 of these bags in my car and to each of their classes on Friday! This should be interesting.

At the beginning of the year, Amelia's kindergarten teacher asks the parents to sign up to read to her class in the mornings. I've read to her class the last two Wednesdays and I read again tomorrow! The first week, I read this book....last week, I read this book and brought in some candy canes for the class! Tomorrow, we will read this book....

This is a great book! For a treat, I wanted to make Christmas Tree cookies....but, baking sugar cookies and using the cookie cutters...well it's just not my thing! Besides....these days, I want all my cookies to look like Amanda's! In light of my inadequacies.....I decided to buy the cookies (thank you Publix)! They had some "ok" looking tree cookies. I wrapped them each individually in a cellophane wrapper and used a Christmas sticker to fasten it.

I put them in another bag for safety reasons (I don't want them turning to crumbs) and tied it with ribbon.

Tomorrow night I will get busy trying to bake some of the REALLY EASY Cranberry Tarts for all of my co workers.....and do my best to get the Christmas cards out!!

Advent is moving along at a pretty good clip! How are you celebrating?