Advent Calendar

One of my fondest memories as a child is the Advent Calendars that Mom used to get for us kids every year.  It was so fun opening a new "door" every day to see what was waiting behind. 

Last year one of the families from Caridad's class gave each child an Advent Calendar.  Each day revealed a gift wrapped square of Chocolate.  The Chocolate tasted great too!  I couldn't leave out baby Rey so I combed the stores looking for something similar for him.  I'm not sure why I didn't just ask Mrs. Gopal where she bought the  calendars that they gave the Kindergartners, but I was only able to find a "cheaper" version of the chocolate-behind-the-door calendar.

No worries though because Sis shared her yummy chocolate with Little Brother every now and then...

One of my favorite bloggers posted a tutorial here for her Advent Calendar last year.  I vowed ever since that I was going to do this for my kids in 2011.

Here is how the Sauris do Advent Calendar...Gather fun, Christmas inspired paper

 

Make envelopes..........all different sizes

Make coordinating pieces of paper to write the day's message on

Stuff your envelopes.....

Decorate some clothes-pins for hanging...

And there you have it.  See the blank spot at the end, don't tell the babies but that is reserved for the big finale for Christmas Eve. 

I hope the Babies Sauri enjoy it!

Linked here:

Me Making Do

 

Holiday Link Party

I totally plan on participating in this Link Party. 

Join Us In Bringing Christmas Cheer to the blogosphere!





Thanks to Michaela for letting me know that her and her friends are hosting these super fun days of Holiday goodness.  Oh I'm super excited and I can't wait to share. 







Maybe I'll get my first follower from the link up.....we shall see

Mommy Sauri~

Giving

Tis the season for giving thanks for all that we have in our lives.  I'm thankful for so many things and maybe Thanksgiving 2012, I'll be organized enough to post a daily thanks during the month of November.

This year though, I have one more baby that is old enough to understand the concept of giving.  That there are people less fortunate than us and they need our help. 

Reynaldo is learning about thankfulness and starting to understand that there are others that don't have what we have.  He got to take a hat and gloves to hang on the Warm Fuzzy Tree at his school.

 

Caridad's school has a canned food drive every year for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter.   She never fails to remind mommy that it's time to buy a little extra when we are at the grocery store. 














We also wanted to participate in our Church's Sock Tree so the kids got to hang those up on the tree at Church on Sunday. 

My wish is that eventually, when the babies are old enough, we can all go to a soup kitchen and volunteer to help with Thanksgiving Dinner.  I remember as a young girl volunteering to clean tables and serve the homeless a nice hot meal.  It really helped me to understand that even though there were lots of things that I "needed" or wished I had, what I really needed was to be thankful for the beautiful life that I was given and to thank my parents for all that they provided for me. 

So here is to a safe Thanksgiving for all.  The Sauris will be eating a lot of home cooked, delicious food and spending precious time with those that we love.  I wish your family a great Thanksgiving!  

School Lunch - Thanksgiving Style

We had school lunch yesterday.  It was Thanksgiving Feast for all. 

I'm really happy that the powers that be made the decision to find a A KayTahRing Company to provide the lunch at school.  Much more healthy using fresh fruits and vegetables, from local farmers no less, and cooking everything fresh everyday. 

Caridad was more interested in her new books from the book fair.  Reynaldo could care less about what was served, he's our picky guy. 

But all in all, it was nice to visit Sis for a bit and share lunch together. 

Hangman

Do you remember when you were taught about Hangman?

I must have learned in school but from who, I cannot remember.  Apparently, Hangman must be too harsh a name for the game because Caridad learned about "Stickman" in school this week.

We had a lot of fun playing over the weekend.  We need to practice a little more though because she misses letters in her words and I pick words that are too difficult.

Halloween

I know, I know, Thanksgiving is less than 2 weeks away but I've been meaning to get this blog going for a couple of months now.  Please, don't deprive me of my excitement to get this up and going.

By the way, are you a member or do you follow me yet?  It will warm my heart if you join my blog.  It will give me the encouragement I need to keep going with this.  So please, post a comment or become a member.  Let me know you've stopped by.  PLEASE!


Halloween was a lot of fun this year.  Baby brother is just big enough to enjoy trick or treating. 

Well then again, he isn't big enough to tell us that he enjoyed it but mommy is going to assume he did!

Sis was a beautiful angel.

We had our hero spider man,

and our baby pumpkin

Cari entered the pumpkin carving contest.  The school sent home a flyer with the rules and it clearly said that 1st and 2nd graders would enter a carving contest.  It was her first time ever doing it, and mommy made her do it all by herself.  I thought it turned out great!

She really wanted to add heart shaped cheeks but maybe next year we can think about adding that to a bigger pumpkin. 

We dropped her carved pumpkin at the gym on Friday morning before school and I was so surprised by all the other entries we saw.  Did these kids really do all of this by themselves??  Also, most were not carved at all but rather decorated or embellished with things that I'm sure my Cari would have enjoyed a lot more than cutting through a one inch thick pumpkin with a little 1 1/2 inch long serrated knife that mommy made her do...by herself...

Well now we know better for next year. 

The Harvest Festival at school was so much fun. I can remember being a kid and really looking forward to the "Halloween Carnival" as we used to called it.   Why do they have to be so politically correct??  Everyone that goes to those things knows we are celebrating Halloween for goodness sake. 

Anyway, playing games, getting candy and eating at the concession stand are all very vivid memories I have of the school Halloween Carnival.

The baby Sauris definitely got their share of all the above.  They threw darts at balloons, golfed, played plinko and went fishing.





And if all that candy wasn't enough we also won bottles of soda too.

Trick-or-treating was a blast too.  Ernest was more interested in  packing everyone's candy into his bucket.  He wanted to make sure his was full.

And don't worry, all our candy was sent to family in Havana, Cuba.  It's on its way as we speak!  And that soda, it's in the fridge waiting until we have the next gathering at Casa de Sauri.  Because I'm not naive enough to know that even though I don't usually drink the stuff, I know others do enjoy it! 





Fall Wreath - Sauri Style

I've always wanted to hang a wreath on my front door.  My Aunt has always done it and I found out my cousin is doing it too.  With the baby Sauris getting older I figured it was time to turn my want of wreaths into action.  I really like her wreath and she has great ideas too. 

BUT..........Here's how the Sauris do it. 

I picked up tree "garbage" from underneath this big guy.

 
See, little twigs and leaves and what we like to call itch bombs.

This tree has to be a guy because he drops those itch bomb balls all over the place!

I also got down to the ground under this beauty,


and picked up those fallen needles and pine cones.

I took everything home and set to work hot gluing everything together.  I should have taken pictures of the process but I was in my element.  I didn't think about it at the time.  I thought Cari would be a little more excited to be helping mommy put the thing together.  It only took about 5 minutes and a couple of hot glue dabs between branches for her to get bored with the idea.  She'd much rather be outside playing in the yard with Papi and her brothers.  Who could blame her?  There aren't very many more nice weekends left for her to look forward to doing that.   

I was super happy with the final product.  My favorite element is the rays of sunshine I fashioned around one of those itch bomb balls with dried pine needles.  See it there in the bottom right hand corner.  Cari's favorite part is the "lit candle" right smack dab in the middle of everything.  Isn't it funny how children's imaginations can make a stick with a leaf at the top seem just like a lit candle. 

I wish I would have taken some close up pictures of the details. Oh well, we have Christmas coming up so there will be more wreath making to come at La Casa de Sauri!