december dailys--the countdown

I can't even begin to tell you how many times since Thanksgiving I have been asked, "How many days until Christmas?" And then Ben and I have been talking about making a Christmas countdown chain for days now, so to appease both Ben and the other questioners, we made the countdown chains today. Danielle joined us, so we had plenty of cutting and taping going on at the same time.
Ok, perhaps I'm a lame mom, but somehow Ben turned out ok without doing much cutting and crafting at home in his earlier years (he has more than made up for it since then!). I'm sitting there watching Will and Jake both trying to cut paper strips and they can barely figure out how to hold the scissors. Crafts just aren't one of my strengths, so they haven't had much practice.

(In the middle of their creations, Will lifted up his shirt to show me how starving hungry his tummy was! Nothing that a little pizza and breadsticks can't take care of!) Will never did quite catch on to the whole thing, thus his strips turned into confetti after a while. Danielle was kind enough to make one for Will after she made hers. Everyone made their own chain to hang in their rooms to make it a little more fun.

This is Ben's finished product (complete with a picture of the Polar Express train heading toward the frozen lake), which is hanging in his room now. I forgot to get a picture of him with it when he was awake, so this is all you get. We had a blast making them, and I think it is something they will look forward to every day.

As a side note: this was a funny conversation I had with Ben when I was tucking him in and tickling his back. He mentioned how cold his sheets were, to which I replied that I was going to get him some flannel sheets soon. I told him that was nothing, because when we were growing up here in Utah, my dad, like everyone else's dad, turned the heater off at night so that when you got up in the morning you could almost see your own breath and I had to sit by a heater for the whole time I practiced my violin just to thaw out. I also mentioned we used electric blankets, and he got a wierd look on his face. I explained what they were, and he thought that was pretty crazy. Look how far we have come in just one generation!!