He got his stripe!

This week Mr. Monkey was given his first black stripe in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu! It takes a VERRRRY long time to progress, up to 10 years which is not like many martial arts available today. He's really enjoying this style, after trying a few different one like Go Ju Ryu and Muay Thai (when he visits with his dad). BJJ teaches that a smaller, weaker person can successfully defend against a bigger, stronger assailant by using leverage and proper technique. We like this as it teaches defense without striking and frankly the boy just loves to wrestle :)

Here with his coaches from Musashi Martial Arts in Barrie!

One proud dude, you can see his newly added stripe!

Tree Ornaments

I've been a bit of a Pinterest junkie as of late, such a great site :) Which leads us to our next Christmas craft! Ornaments!

These were very simple and the children enjoyed doing them. The how to is here but really not needed LOL http://gardenmama.typepad.com/my_weblog/2011/01/my-entry-1.html

Press the cedar or pine tree into the clay, press the circle around it, make a hole for sting once dried, voila... new ornaments!

Left over clay became a snail :)

Enormous Snowflakes!

We spent the afternoon at a friends doing some ENORMOUS snowflakes. It was a really fun project and interesting to see both kids tackle the same thing in totally different ways. The boy of course was free flowing and inconsistent in his patterning. The girl on the other hand was very meticulous about things being the same on each prong.

How ever they did it, they both came out with some lovely flakes. The how to is here: http://www.bluecricketdesign.net/2010/12/wooden-snowflake-by-glimpse-inside.html

Yeah!

Finding wall space for these was tough, so the window would do for one :)

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree!

We managed to cut down our own tree this year. This is a first for the kiddos as we usually put up old faithful (our plastic one LOL) It was a lot of fun and the kids want to make that a tradition moving forward!

Our ride down the hill!

Look mom we found one LOL

Perhaps this one....

Nope definitely this one :) Cut, cut, cut!

Victooooorious!

Oma joined us!

The husband had no rope and decided that the extension cord in the garage was perfect LOL While I was slightly embarrassed that tree didn't budge :s

Crafty Day!

Friends of ours do a lot of crafty stuff over the holidays and we get to crash one of those days once a week LOL So last week we did up these cute little frosted balls. We painted one set blue and let it dry and then glued the Epsom Salts to them afterwards. Another set we just glued the salts on without any other colour behind. They turned out really great!

Activities Coming to a Close

We are wrapping up some of the activities the kiddos were in over the past few months! I always enjoy this time of year, a wind down from the break neck pace :) Christmas is good too!

Dancing

I included this picture because I love it! They were totally loving the tunes we had on at lunch the other day! LOL

She's a Chef!

We've been looking at Community Helpers over the past week or so and Little Miss picked a Chef to learn about. She made the salad all by herself while I schooled Mr. Monkey and did a great job. She also picked truffles to make, which as we know not the healthiest choice, but she wanted to try her hand at being a dessert chef LOL They were YUMMY!