Tapping the Maple Tree

We all took a trip out in the woods today to watch Tony tap maple trees. Hopefully if all ends well we will have fresh maple syrup soon.

Caya was chosen as the mug shot of the day on channel 8 morning news today.

James was so excited. He has been wanting to get a picture on the mug shot of the day for about a year. A few nights ago he was tired of waiting. Slide a chair over, climbed on the cupboard to get the mug he wanted. Got the camera and chased Caya around, getting a blurry shot of the baby and a few of his mug. 

Christmas Count Down Advent Calendars

 

Last year I bought my boys Advent Calendars, not very nice, a thin card board with windows to open. Inside each window was a tiny waxy tasting piece of chocolate. They were tired of the bad chocolate about half way though. James has been asking for an Advent Calendar for about a month now. So today I made my boys happy. Christmas Count Down Advent Calendars.

Supplies need: 25 Mini Candy Bars, Scissors, tape, paper, ink jet printer

I did a image web search on Google for free Christmas designs. I downloaded the ones I wanted on my computer and used Picnik, a free online image editing software to crop them to the approximate rectangle shape. Then I imported each image into OpenOffice and adjusted the size to 1 3/8" (1.38) x 3" rectangles. Some of the images are a bit skewed but they work. I typed each count down day right over the image and printed on my ink jet printer. You could also use any wrapping paper you already have and a marker to write on them, or print out my wrappers from here - Page 1 & Page 2 designs.

Cut out all 25 wrappers

Wrap each mini candy bar in a wrapper and tape on the back side.

I then used masking tape and stuck them to the side of my fridge.

You could tape them to some tag board, a bed room door or just leave them in a bowl and make the search for today's treat part of the fun. I made name signs to go above each calendar as well.

The boys came home from school today and were very excited when they saw them. They are waiting hard for December 1st to come so they can start the count down.