Battalion Christmas Party

Today we had our Battalion Family Christmas party. They had a lot of things for the kids to do and we had a big potluck ham and turkey dinner. It was a good time and the kids had a blast! We had it inside one of the big aircraft hangers and of course they had a bounce house, Joshua's favorite...

They also had other carnival type games and the kids could win prizes. One of the girls' favorite parts was the 'snow' which was really tons of shredded paper, but the kids loved it and never seemed to tire of playing in it.

Santa also made a visit and Joy and Joshua decided that they wanted to say hi...

Can you just hear Joshua saying "and I want ____, and ____, and ____". I think Peter took this next picture mid "and",  LOL! :)

After 'Santa' (one of Peter's friends) heard their wish lists, he joked that their Daddy needed a promotion! Apparently they didn't hold back and made sure Santa knew all their hopes for Christmas gifts.  :)

Joy got to play with her friend 'Joy', which was a fun surprise. We didn't know her family was army, the girls play out on the playground together often but we've never met her parents.

Samuel was looking cute in his little vest and tie...

He spent a good part of the party chucking Hershey's kisses off the table.

They also had a large craft table with tons of supplies and the kids spent a LOT of time there! They glittered and glued and made beautiful messes! One of the projects we brought home was a coffee filter angel to go with the star on top of our tree.

Everyone had a good time, even me.  :)

Advent Calendar - Day 3......Eggs!

Our advent calendar activity for today was something none of us have ever done before. We made ornaments out of eggs with all the guts blown out! :) It was great fun and I was thrilled that it actually worked! AND we managed to get through the whole process and creation without breaking a single one!

It was pretty amazing to see all that egg come out of just a tiny hole!

Faith didn't want to do this part so Daddy helped her get it all out, but she liked getting all sticky in the glue during the decorating. :)

Poor Fathie's face is pretty beat up this week. She slipped on a scarf in the playroom and landed right on her cheek bone so she's got a bit of a black eye. Then today she was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time and got bonked with the door by Joshua and it actually gave her a little cut on her cheek which is why she is wearing that huge band aid. It's actually not very big, but the giant band aid made her feel better.  :)

Our tree full of completely home made ornaments is turning out to be quite beautiful I think! Here is one of our egg ornaments we made tonight, and a few others we added this week. 

We made these delicious smelling cut out ornaments today at our friend's house that are made up of applesauce and yummy smelling spices!

And I think our bottle cap sparkly snowflakes turned out pretty great too.  :) 

I hope all of you are having a wonderful advent season. We sure are enjoying ours! 

Advent Activity Day 2

Today was the second day of our advent calendar and today's activity was to make reindeer out of our hands and feet! The kids thought that was pretty silly and we had a fun time doing it. :)
Daddy helped trace everyone's hands and feet, then we cut them out and glued them all together, added eyes, ears and red noses of course!

I think they all turned out really cute!  :) We won't be doing crafts every day of advent, but there are several planned toward the beginning of the month so that we can make them and enjoy them all month long. The kids are really getting into it now and are very excited to see what is in the next door!

First Day of Advent and We're Minus a Tooth!

December 1st, the day finally came! The kids were so excited about opening the first door of their advent calendar tree but we told them that we had to wait until after dinner. So all day they waited, and all day I tried to keep their sweet minds on other things.
THEN, something else really exciting happened before we even got around to our advent activity! Just as we all finished eating and were still sitting at the table, Joy said, "Oh no!" Then she got a giant grin, minus one tooth, on her face and it was then I could see what all the smiling was about.  :)

She was thrilled!

And she had about a hundred questions! LOL! :)

After we calmed down from the first exciting event of the night, we let the kiddos open the first door of the calendar.

I think the tooth kind of stole the show for the night, but we've got 23 more nights of this and tons of fun activities planned to do as a family so I'm okay with that.  :)

Joy read us all the first note and it told us to make a star for the top of the Christmas tree.

So we set to work right away and Daddy began cutting out star shapes for us to decorate.

It was super simple and easy but it was something that we could all work on together... and that's kind of the whole reason why I wanted to do and activity advent calendar, so it was a fun success and turned out very sweet! Not quite the beautiful glowing angel or fully lighted bright star, but it fits our tiny tree nicely and the kids are very proud of it.  :)

Getting Ready For Christmas in Korea

The day after Thanksgiving, the house still a mess, we were all eager to decorate for Christmas as usual. Only this year....well, the next 3....won't be Christmas 'as usual' for the Adams Family. We were very limited on our house hold goods weight limit that the army would ship over here and with 6 people, holiday decor just didn't make the cut. So sadly, here we are for 3 years with NO decorations!

After I got over being sad and missing all my special things that are packed up in a storage place somewhere...only the army knows...then I decided I'd better change my attitude about it all. Christmas is still Christmas without all that stuff! - I think the Whos down in Whoville taught me that one. :) 

We talked about just celebrating without all the 'stuff', but 3 years is a long time and a lot of Christmases without our special things. Then we decided we could make all of our decorations for the house and continue with some of our usual traditions, but in the end, I HAD to have a tree to put the presents under! A paper one on the window just wouldn't do!

So....the hunting began. There are not real Christmas trees easily accessible over here. We have heard rumors that there are some available in far off places that cost quite a bit if you are willing to travel to get them, and Korean stores don't carry fake ones either. I haven't yet figured out how Christmas is celebrated in the culture over here. There are many Christian Korean churches around but the usual signs of Christmas...even though everything I'm thinking of is mostly commercial...like we see in the States, just aren't found over here.

Our only hope to find a fake tree was at the PX, or the Osan AFB BX. They had a few different ones to start, and even less to choose from after the Day After Thanksgiving morning rush of insane shoppers. So by that Friday afternoon, our choices were limited. We settled on, not the smallest but the next size up A 4.5 foot tree as the only other option was a gigantic one that would never fit in our Korean size house. Anything middle size, short enough, or in the budget... was out. It is the tiniest Christmas tree we've ever had! Thankfully, the kids all think it's really cute and fun that it's 'their size'. :)

So we pulled it out of the box and Joshua put together the two pieces that make up the tree...LOL!

It came pre-lit but when the kids started asking where the decorations were, I told them in my happiest, 'isn't this fun' voice..."We're going to make them all! What can we find in the house to make our tree decorations with?" After a few minutes, they really started to get into it and we really did decorate the tree with only things we could find around the house! :) 

I'm really missing all the tons of craft stores in America right now that are so easy to run down the street and pop into anytime. The only Korean craft store I have found so far has a very limited supply of useful things. Tiny pom poms and stickers is about as good as it gets. I haven't even been able to find yarn anywhere! So we started our search in the house for things to create with. Remember, we didn't have room for anything extra...so the few crafty things I do have must have been stuck in random places and made their way here because my big craft totes went in the truck to storage. We found one sheet of red felt, and a bag of buttons and ribbons that I use when I make the girl's hair bows, construction paper, some cinnamon sticks and one glittery star sticker....it's a good start! The kids got right to work cutting shapes and gluing. Thankfully, I found some Elmer's type glue at the Koren store, I couldn't find any at our PX! No glue, no glitter, no pipe-cleaners! As I searched for something, anything to use, I was REALLY missing Oma's craft room! We got spoiled for awhile having it so close! :)

The ornaments were placed (without the use of any hooks) lovingly on the tree after each one was created. 

We tied some ribbon bows on it.

And some cinnamon sticks...

I think they all turned out really cute and are a great start to our homemade decorations!

Now that the creative juices are flowing, we have plans to make a few more over the next couple of weeks out of unique items and add them to our collection.

I ordered the kids all matching stockings with their names on them a few days before Thanksgiving and they got here surprisingly quick! I decided to hang them on their bedroom and playroom doors, since we currently have no fireplace, and put our advent calendar right in the middle. 

I found a great advent calendar online that I printed, cut and taped together...it was a lot of work, but I'm really excited to start it with the kids tomorrow! Since it's just made up of tiny flat paper doors that couldn't actually hold any treats or prizes, I decided to plan a fun activity for the family for each day. So I made a list of 24 activities, typed them out and folded each one up like a little note and stuck it in its appropriate numbered door and closed it with a little silver star sticker as the door handle. :) We'll be saving our door opening for evening time when Peter is home to do it with us. 

One of the things I miss the most from my box of special decorations is my nativity. So as  I crafted ornaments with the kids, my sweet husband drew me one! I had to take some pictures of him drawing it so people would believe he really drew this! 

He sketched it all out in pencil, then went over it with pen and filled it in. 

I think it turned out so cool! Here are all the pieces. I'm going to take another picture later, after we decide how and where to display them. I think my favorite part is the piece with the shepherds and the sheep. It took me a minute to see it, but there is one shepherd standing up and one kneeling and bowing all the way down, then behind him are 3 black sheep....can you see them? So cool! He is so talented! :)

So I started out feeling sad and homesick as the Christmas season drew near and by the end of all this I remembered that, "No One Has More Fun Than The Adamses!", and am now very much looking forward to celebrating this year! 

The First Snow

We enjoyed our first snow of the season here in South Korea today! It wasn't much...just a dusting, but it was enough to get the kids excited and make me have to go out in the cold with them for 20 minutes!

Every year, no matter where we've lived, we always celebrate the first snow of the season with a yummy cup of hot chocolate and marshmallows. The kids all ran to the window as soon as they woke up and squealed with delight, "It snowed! It snowed!"

Joshua immediately asked if we'd be having hot chocolate with our breakfast! To which I replied, "Of course! It's tradition!" Each of the children very much enjoyed their warm sweet treat to celebrate the first snow, it was a nice way to start the day.  :)

Faith Elaina wouldn't stop slurping long enough to smile for a picture. This is the most she'd give me....a peek over her mug!

Later in the morning I finally got brave enough to bundle everyone up and venture out into the cold after being asked about a hundred times, "Can we go out now?!" I'm actually glad it was only a dusting, I think it would have been much harder to bring them in if there was a lot more to play with out there.

They did somehow manage to make a snowman still, even though there was not much snow to work with!

Okay now that that is done....I'm ready for summer! :)