Logan's candy cane making

This has become a must tradition in our family. I love taking Madison and now this year Caleb to logans candies in Ontario to watch how candy canes are made. last year we had to stand out in the cold and watch the presentation but this year i messed the time up so we were there really early and got super good seats and inside where it was warm too. One of my favorite things they do is to bend the warm candy cane into your own shape at the end of the demo. its sooo fun.

 cooling the candy

 Shaping the candy cane layers together

 Starting a new batch

 My favorite part...warm candy cane samples

 caleb is ready to get in on the action (he's rolling the candy canes and measuring them in the background)

 Watching the candy canes being made

 the striped layer

 stretching the candy

 eating a warm candy cane

Anthony and Caleb made their own candy cane shape (costs $1.45)

Edible Christmas tree Decorating

So I do this every year since i felt like madison could do it on her own so 2 years in a row now and I have to say its a big hit with all the kids every year. last year I mostly did it for madison. this year i let her go all on her own. and as you can see she ate alot of frosting and candy! but thats what these things are all about. we had a great group of kids this year and all of them made some pretty amazing Christmas trees.

 

 Madison and London

 Kylie

 Christopher and Ephraim

 Bruin, Hudson, and Capri (the big kids)

Since Caleb and Brayden are too small to participate they got a little play date out of it

Ginger Bread House Decorating

Our "elf" maverick brought the kids a ginger bread house for us to decorate. we have never done one of these because our kids have always been sooooo little but this year seemed like it would be possible to do.

 

Caleb watching mommy assemble the ginger bread house

 mommy pick me up so i can see what you are doing

 he was screaming on the floor so he can come up and see what we were doing

 okay! i'll put you up here so you can watch...total silence the rest of the time.

 time for some fine motor skills practice (those candies were super small)

 Finally a well developed pincer grasp

 

 All finished and Madison was very glad to play with something

Candy cane project

Another one of Anthony's projects for madison was to make a candy cane out of red construction paper, glue, and cotton balls.

I thought it would be a good idea for Caleb to have a little sensory experience with the cotton balls but really all he wanted to do is eat them and he wasn't afraid of them one bit.

 

Christmas Countdown Chain

Anthony is getting to really be an amazing dad! Madison's therapy for fine motor and speech through the regional center will stop on her birthday so super dad decided to step in. So for their first craft he decided to make a Christmas countdown chain that she can rip a piece off each night.

All finished and super proud of her chain!

Helping daddy one ring at a time

daddy let her do the stapler! which takes tons of grip strength!

Its tree decorating time!

Every year we have to wait for Anthony to survive the black Friday weekend before we get to decorate our tree. I patiently wait for this and last year Madison helped really well so i was pretty excited to get her in on it this year too...i was also pretty excited to see Caleb's reaction to the tree and all the decorations.

 Caleb watched Anthony the whole time he was in total amazement

 

 I'm eternally grateful that he cannot crawl yet!

I got the honors of tree topper this year ... and yes i'm so short i have to stand on the couch arm

She helped decorate the whole tree and she was super excited to do it in the first place which for Madison with her horrible sensory issues is a big deal.