Construction party for a 2-year-old

This little man turned two a while back, and it was his turn to have a little something extra on his special day. 

He is a HUGE fan of tractors and dump trucks and diggers and so on, it wasn't hard to think of a theme for his party. So, we turned our back yard in to a construction site! We used yellow, black, orange and red on everything, some construction themed traffic signs, fake grass and rocks, balloons and toys....

I crafted banners and signs with Photoscape, with a little help of some clip art images. This time I had a really tight budget so I only bought black ink for my printer and printed everything on yellow paper we allready had in our craft stash. (Luckily there was some red ink left.) Then I glued everything on yellow, orange, red or black cardboard. Easy, simple and effective.

But the best part was all the real construction stuff that my husband borrowed from work! He was even wearing his own work clothes and helmet. 

I naturally used pinterest for inspiration, and found some very nifty little details like the idea to use a wheelbarrow for presents and a toy helmet for guest book.

And then of course we had food!

I planned every food to fit the theme, and so we had rolling boulders, a salad consruction site, tractor wheels, nuts and bolts, you get the picture.

We used toys, traffic signs, rocks and fake grass to make the table look like a construction site.

And then there was this cake! This was actually the very first thing I stumbled upon in pinterest that gave me this idea of a construction party. I mean, how cool is that for a two-year-old digger fan? Actual excavators digging in to a cake!

And that was it. It might have been hard to find a happier little boy that day. Mission accomplished.

The end of countdown and such a magical Christmas eve

The countdown is over, Christmas is finally here! Yesterday was just as beautiful and full of joy as Christmas eve can ever be. The last two suprises on our Christmas calendar where easy peasy, no more tasks... On 23rd she got the Frozen dvd and watched it twice while us parents were making the last minute Christmas cooking, cleaning, baking and running errands. Yesterday there was a note that said to look under the tree. And there was a breakfast dish set for both of them (bowl, plate and mug), Frozen theme for her and Cars theme for our car maniac little man.

And we did manage to decorate the tree, after I got a new set of lights from the supermarket Christmas hell.

We spent the Christmas eve at Grandma's. Family, dinner, santa and joy, what more could one wish for Christmas?

My input for the family dinner was this cake, husband made The ham. Of course we made some preparations for our own Christmas time, but there was still plenty of time left to just chill. No running-like-crazy for this family this Christmas. What is not cleaned needs not to be cleaned. No sweat, we are not spending the holidays neither in the toilet nor the fridge.

When we got home at night, there were even more presents waiting under the tree! We had made this car track t-shirt for daddy. He was very happy with the back massage and the kids loved the two little cars that I bought to go with the t-shirt. This was the first Christmas for our toddler to actually understand what's going on, and he was just overjoyed. He got plenty of cars from Santa and woke up 10 times during last night screaming CAR CAR CAR. Our 5-year-old was just so happy and on her best behavior for the whole day, I was so amazed. What a great Christmas! Today we'll just rest and let it all sink in.

**

All and all I'm very happy how our Christmas calendar turned out, we were all filled with Christmas spirit and the house was ready for celebration with no sweat. Win win.

Allmost there...

It's allmost Christmas! 

I had planned all kinds of decoration tasks for the Christmas calendars last few days... but then there was a change of plans, our calendar opener left to a sleep-over at Granny's.  So I had to whip up something new.... and it wasn't very succesful. Oh well...

Yesterday morning we had very little time before Grandma came and picked her up. The calendar task was to create a "Christmas spirit reservoir" for the year to come, a big picture with all happy things drawn/written/glued. The plan was to take it with her and ad more to it with the grandparents, but we forgot to pack it. Oh well, maybe tomorrow...

Today's task was to decorate the Christmas tree that my husband brought home yesterday. "Is that all??" she asked. Sigh. Yes, that was all. And to make it even worse, we realized that last year the Tree lights had broken and we never replaced them, so we could not decorate the tree after all! Oh well, maybe tomorrow...

But. The house is now pretty and comfy and christmassy with all the deco and sheep skins and wool blankets. And all the presents are wrapped! And we've got cookies! Christmas may come. 

(Allthough it might be a good idea to wipe clean the livingroom table...again. Oh well, maybe tomorrow...)

Yet another Christmas window (and even more gingerbread)

Our secret Christmas elf had noticed, that it's only four nights till Christmas but there wasn't any decorations in the kid's room. So, our task today was to make a Christmas window (again).

We cleaned the room, washed the window and then created this scene of santa landing next to a house (with a patio) at night.

The elf (pretending to be santa) and the reindeers we had from previous years, everything else we made today. And we still had time left to finally decorate the gingerbreads!

I prepared this setup with all the decorations and different colours of frosting, and invited the others to come and create. 

And we had so much fun!

The result is... creative, colorful, fun, joyful! What else could you ever hope for Christmas?

Gingerbread, gingerbread, gingerbread rock...

We've had a very gingerbread-smelling two days here, and it is really starting to feel like christmas. 

Yesterday our secret elf had left a cookie cutter in the calendar, along with a note that said that it's time to make a huge pile of gingerbread... ...and a gingerbread house. We had a bit of misfortune with the dough, so we only managed to make the cookies yesterday. But that was plenty!

How many hands do you see in the next picture, how many bakers? The answer: two bakers and one super-fast everywhere-climber-dough-stealer...

Today in the calendar was some colourful sprinkles, in the note a request to decorate the cookies we made yesterday and to bake and decorate a gingerbread house. Alot to do, especially since we had guests today. So... we still haven't decorated the cookies, but we have two very special gingerbread houses. Well... ...one house and one castle!

Inspiration for the  prezel rod walls came from this cool cabin. We made windows with gelatine sheets and put tiny flickering led candles inside.

While us girls were tinkering with the cabin, my husband built a very impressive fort.

Note the round towers and roofs! He made the towers with paper towell rolls while the pieces were still hot.