Christmas Morning

Here are some shots of Christmas morning at the Higgins house!

Christmas Eve

We went to Greg's Aunt Donna's house in Washington, MO for Christmas Eve with the Schmitt family. We ate a lot (Logan only ate pickles and chocolate cake...lovely), sang some Christmas carols, and played games. Greg and I played a dice game and apples to apples with some people in the dining room while Logan played wii bowling in the living room. Well, he didn't really play. He a remote control car and he must have thought it was a wii controller because he stood off to the side of the TV and he pushed his buttons and watched the TV very intently. If "he" missed, he would say "Aww, man!!"

He got to stay up past his bedtime and had a good time with all of his cousins!

Happy Birthday Jesus

Tonight we had Jesus's birthday party. We sang to Jesus and Logan blew out the candles and we ate cupcakes (and Christmas cookies). Then Logan got to open 2 presents one from Grandma and Grandpa Bradley and one from Grandma and Grandpa Higgins. He got a candy toy thing from G-ma/pa Bradley. It has Santa in an airplane and when you push a button, the propeller rotates. He played with that thing for 30 minutes straight. It was a fun activity and helped us focus on Jesus- the reason for the season.

The little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay

This week Logan is learning about Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus. So I gave Logan a baby doll, some "hay" and a box for the manger. We had to borrow the baby from my mom because all I had was a cabbage patch kid with pigtails-- not so baby Jesus like. Greg suggested we just use the stuffed Garfield or Curious George. Somehow that seemed wrong to me!

Logan LOVED playing with the hay. (It was actually a cut up hawaiian skirt from the dollar tree).

We put the hay in the box... and he pulled it out multiple times...

I showed him how to wrap up the baby and told him how Mary wrapped up Baby Jesus. I asked him if he wanted to put the baby "Night night" in the hay.

He said, "NO!" and threw the baby on the ground. Such a boy.... but I did get him to kiss the baby night night after a while.

He put the baby in the hay... and wanted to put the hay on top of the baby.

We also put a bow on baby Jesus to show that Jesus is a gift from God.

We read a few picture books about Jesus's birth. I pointed to Mary and said, "That's Jesus's mommy, Mary, can you say, Mary?" He said, "Mary" I did the same with Joseph, "Can you say Joseph?" He said, "NO!" At least he knows his limitations!! I showed him the picture and pointed to baby Jesus and he said, "Jesus!"

Making a Mess

Logan's new favorite phrase is, "What a mess!"

He still doesn't seem to understand he is the one making all the messes!

Wrap up

We finished making wrapping paper last week. We just needed these supplies:

a snowman stamp, tempera paint, tape, and a paper plate to hold our paint.


Of course, Logan also needed a paint shirt. I decided to donate my Centrikid shirt from 2000. Seriously, that's embarrasing that it was still in my drawer.

Logan did a good job stamping the snowmen onto the wrapping paper.

He did walk in the wet paint but no worries, it was tempera paint.

Here is his final product!

We also made ornaments for Logan's grandparents and great-grandmas. We took plastic ornament balls, put glue on them and then put them in a shoe box with glitter and Logan did the shaking.

His favorite part was throwing the "balls" across the room! They turned out less than beautiful but Grandparents like anything, right? I thought I had a picture but I don't... oh well, don't want to spoil the Grandparent's suprise.

Logan's cousin

Sweet little Jacob. He kept makin funny faces at me! We can't wait for Tyson to join to gang of boys!

Logan being Logan

Logan insisted on wearing this hat to his doctor appointment on Monday.

'Advent'ually it will be Christmas

I wanted to use Advent this year to sort of introduce Logan to the cast of characters in the Christmas story. This week we're learning about the Angels that told the good news that Jesus would be born.

We made a shape angel.

We started with 3 pre-cut shapes (triangle, big circle, little circle).

Logan colored the triangle and the big circle. I tried to tell him the names of the shapes, "Triangle and Circle." He replied, "NO, Moon." And insisted on calling the circle "moon." Ahh, the independent 19 month old :)

Then I put glue on the triangle and circle and we sprinkled glitter on them.

There are no pictures of "glittering" I hate glitter. Eight years of teaching elementary school made me hate glitter. But I also learned that no matter the age of your child, they will still make a mess with glitter. Fourth graders are just as bad with glitter as first graders. And 19 months old, they use glitter just like fourth graders-- way too much and it doesn't stay in the glitter box. But since it's always gonna be a mess to use glitter, we might as well have a little fun! Ok, enough of my rampage on glitter.

We folded the big circle in half for wings, and I glued the pieces together while Logan played in the sink and cleaned up.

We also sang a song: (Tune: The Farmer in the Dell)

The Angels told the news

The Angels told the news

The Lord has come for everyone,

The Angels told the news.

AND JUST WHEN YOU THINK THEY'RE NOT LISTENING...

After singing the song we had this conversation:

Logan: What the news?

Me: (super long pause while I try to figure out how to explain this to a 19 mo old) ummmm..... the good news is that Jesus is going to be born!

Logan: Oh, I love news!

It's beginning to look a little like Christmas

We aren't doing much in the way of Christmas decorating at the Higgins house this season. Mostly because I'm scared that I will go into labor before I get my Christmas tree and decorations put away and they will remain up in our house until June.

But on Sunday, Greg did put up the Christmas tree. It's a prelit. It only has 2 pieces. It takes about 5 minutes to put up and take down. We're not going to put ornaments on it. We're just going to enjoy the lights this year.

Logan loved the tree. He walked around it kissing it and saying, "I love tree." He also hit it a few times. And on Monday I did find a toy dinosaur stuffed in the tree but all in all he's doing a good job with it.

He also loved the tree skirt that Grandma Bradley made. A few of the quilt blocks have tiny little trains on them and he loves to lay on the tree skirt and look for the "choo choos"

Also on Sunday the three of us made our first batch of Christmas cookies. We needed some to take to church and also to Aunt Pam and the new baby!

We gave Logan his own mixing bowl with chocolate chips and powdered sugar in it and let him stir and eat the sugar and chocolate chips.

I also let him eat raw cookie dough. I know. Bad mommy. But you gotta let your kids live a little, right?

It was a fun day and it got me into the Christmas spirt.

19 months old

Logan turned 19 months old on December 1st!

He also got a new cousin on December 1st, Jacob Donald Penning. That puts him up to four BOY cousins and one baby BROTHER on the way!!

Logan continues to grow and change each month.. developing more independence, more personality.

He is starting to use sentences. His favorite is, "I love (juice, wee vee, blanket, fish)" This is translated as, "I want (juice, tv, blanket, fish)." He says it in a loud, fast voice and sounds a little like a new character for a Will Farrell or Adam Sandler movie!

He loves to play ball. We've been throwing balls, kicking balls, rolling balls, shooting balls into the laundry basket, and bowling.... all ideas provided by the PAT educator. Here's the ridiculous part, Logan has surpassed my athletic ability already.

He loves to dress (and undress) himself and he loves to pick out his own clothes. He also is way into dress ups... especially hats!

He's begun to test the limits some. Generally we know he's doing something he's not supposed to do because we hear him in the other room telling himself, "no, no" before he does it! He does love to climb up on the table and since I'm bad about leaving out cups of water and the computer, it's better that he learns NOT to climb on the table. The other day I put him in time out for sitting on the table. He cried. Then afterwards, I picked him up and gave him a hug and he told me, "I love dada." Of course, when Greg put him in time out and then gave him a hug and said, "I love you." Logan said, "No, I love YOU." STINKER!!

Feeling "Advent"urous?

If so, then you should totally do some Advent activities with your one year old!

Logan and I started our celebration of advent this week with a few very simple activities. He actually did really well -- for having a .2 second attention span lately!

This week we focused on Jesus is God's gift to us. I gave Logan some gifts-- they were his own toys wrapped up-- and let him unwrap them. He really prefers the gift bags and tissue paper-- you can get to that toy so much faster.

As he opened his gifts I would tell him, "Jesus is our special gift from God." or something simple like that. I know it sounds trivial, but I think if he hears that A LOT at a young age, maybe it will sink in and he'll begin to understand the reason for the season!

We also made wrapping paper to wrap his gifts to his grandparents in.

First, we colored (scribbled) with crayons.

Next week we're going to try sponge painting the same sheet of wrapping paper. (We were going to do it this week but pregnancy sometimes makes you too tired to sponge paint!)