Our 25 Days of Christmas! {Days 13-16}

Day 1 - Make a Countdown to Christmas Chain
Day 2 - Write a Letter to Santa
Day 3 - Go to the Zoo to See ZooLights!
Day 4 - Frosty the Snowman Movie Night

Day 5 - Joke and Treat Day

Day 6 - Learn a Christmas Song

Day 7 - Make Paper Snowflakes

Day 8 - Play Christmas Bingo

Day 9 - Joke and Treat Day

Day 10 - Make a Handprint Wreath

Day 11- Color Christmas Coloring Pages

Day 12- Make Gingerbread Houses

Day 13 - Polar Express Movie Night

I didn't do a very good job planning our Polar Express movie night but it turned out to be a lot of fun anyway! Me and Dave literally threw everything together right before we were about to start making dinner. We had planned on having quesadillas that night and we kind of made it fit in with the movie... you'll have to see in a minute.

We decorated our table with some Christmas decorations that we had out around the house.

I found these tickets online and edited them to say The Harrison Express across the top. We are going to use them next week when we go to look at Christmas lights but I thought it would be fun to put them out on our Polar Express movie night too. I used a marker to dot all of our names on the tickets, it didn't turn out legible as I had hoped it would. These nights are all about fun and using your imagination anyway, right? :)

I made a little train out of some graham crackers, cookies and candy. And we made The North Pole out of some candy and donuts... as I said before, use your imaginations! *lol*

We've had these plates for almost 4 years now and this is the first time we've ever used them! I bought a set of 4 of them for a couple of bucks at the traveling Disney outlet store (I forgot exactly what it's called) when they were in Salt Lake a few years ago. Each plate has a different picture on it, but I thought this one with the train on it was very fitting. :) 

We also turned our train on and watched it go around the tree a couple of times (until Ashlynn pulled it off the track *lol*). I thought we'd leave it on while we were eating dinner but I'm kind of glad that Ashlynn pulled it off the track because it is loud!! It would have gotten annoying very quickly. We love the train but when it's the only thing on and the rest of the house is quiet it can sure give you a headache! 

We had quesadillas and corn for dinner. We used a train cookie cutter to cut the kids' cheese quesadillas into trains! I think that was Dawson's favorite part. 

And we ate dinner in our pjs which goes along with the movie pretty well. :) And Dawson drank some hot chocolate. Me and Dave were also going to have some hot chocolate but the house was pretty warm and hot chocolate wasn't sounding very good at the time.

After dinner we watched the movie and enjoyed some yummy popcorn sprinkled with some silver bells. :)

We all enjoyed watching the movie! Dawson wasn't too thrilled about watching it when we first told him what we were doing but after all the fun at dinner he started to get excited about it and watched the whole thing!

Day 14 - Joke and Treat Day

What do you get when you cross a snowman and a vampire?

Frostbite! :)

Day 15 - Build a Snowman

I planned all of Our 25 Days of Christmas activities at the end of November. I knew I wanted to have build a snowman in there somewhere but how was I supposed to know when it would snow?! I took a chance and just put it in there. It actually happened to be our activity for day 16 but when we woke up on day 15 to tons of snow we decided to hurry and change it before Dawson got up to open the door. I thought it was pretty cool that I almost planned it on the right day. :P 

Anyway, Saturday turned out to be the PERFECT day to build a snowman! The snow was perfect, the temperature was around 38 degrees which is cold if you're not bundled up but we were! There wasn't any wind or anything so our noses and ears didn't get very cold at all. We were able to stay out in the snow for over an hour and we were comfortable the whole time. Why can't all snow days be like that?! 

Here are the kids all bundled up and ready to go outside. 

I got a pretty good deal on Ashlynn's snowsuit and coat online last week. We bought it in size 3T so hopefully she can wear it next year, too. Dawson's coat and snowsuit is from last year and still fits him (It's a 4T so it won't fit him much longer). And they both got new snow boots and waterproof mittens to wear. 

I had Ashlynn lay down and I helped her make a snow angel. She didn't like it too much because there was some snow falling and she didn't like it getting in her face. She didn't cry or anything, she just kept her hands up by her face most of the time while she was laying down.

Here are the kids helping dada make the snowman. This is about the only part they helped with. After that they just ran around and played in the snow. :)

And here is our snowman all finished. The kids loved him!!!

We used York Peppermint Patties for his eyes and mouth and used Hershey's Kisses for his nose and buttons. His mouth kept falling down, though, so we came up with a better solution! Suckers! We're definitely going to use these every year. Just unwrap them, stick the the stick in the snowman and ta-da, it stays in place! Dave built the snowman facing our patio so we went inside we could see him. 

Love it!! Oh yeah, we added a little hat, too. I bought a fleece pet blanket from Target's dollar spot and cut it up to make his scarf and hat. Here's a close up after Dave put the suckers in.

After I closed our blinds for the night, me and Dawson peeked out of them to check on our snowman and some kids had kicked him over. :( He probably would have melted today anyway but Dawson was sad that he wasn't there anymore. Hopefully next year we'll be in a house and can build snowmen in our own backyard and won't have to worry about kids messing with him. Dawson said Santa isn't going to bring those kids presents because they are mean! I didn't agree or disagree but I thought it was cute that he came up with that all on his own. 

Day 16 - Make an Ornament for the Tree

Here are the ornaments Dawson and Ashlynn made for our tree. I love them! Dawson made the candy cane and Ashlynn made the wreath. I cut out the shapes and put the glue on the cardboard for them but other than that they did the rest. I just pushed down the pom-poms a little when they were finished to make sure they would stay put.

And that catches us up through today!! Having these activities to do everyday is sure making time go by fast! We've all been enjoying this Christmas season for sure!