Snow painting

by Vicky Here's a fun little activity to do outside with your kids. Simply fill a some water bottles with water and a few drops of food colouring, and head outside to paint on the snow. Spray bottles and sippy cups also work really well!

You can experiment with different colours and painting techniques - try shaking a sippy cup upside down, or even swirling the water in the air before it lands on the snow.

Now since you can't frame your masterpiece, make sure to take a picture of it instead!

Vicky is the mom to 4 year old son named Joel and 18 month old daughter named Mieka. You can read her blog at blog Some Kind of Mom.

Playing with boxes on Boxing Day

by Brie After the flurry that is Christmas Day one thing is for certain. Our house is filled with boxes. Little boxes that toy trains came in. Big boxes  that gifts from out of town came in. There are lots and lots of boxes.

My kids are past the stage where they are happy to just sit and play with a box instead of the toy that came with it. But they will happily play with boxes, once they are presented in the right way.

Boxes offer an awesome creative potential. Here are some of the activities we have done with them in the last month:

- Made a holiday wreath for the front door. I cut out two large rings and had the kids decorate them by gluing shapes cut out from coloured construction paper, like white snowmen and green trees. The finished products were hung on ribbon and suspended to a nail on the front door.

- Cut out letters of the alphabet and used them to create words with my 4 year old. I got this idea afetr volunteering in her kindergarten class one day and observing the kids working on their "at" family words. Now we have a bunch of "at" words we can make out of cardboard, moving letters around easily to create new words.

- Cut out three holes in the biggest boxes I could find. The boy enjoyed painting his. And then he pulled it over his head and chased me down the hallway. There is nothing like a box for some good robot/monster fun.

How do your kids like to play with boxes?

Brie is the mom of a 4 year old daughter “the girl” and 2 old son “the boy”. You can read her blog at Capital Mom.

Taffy Lane – Orleans’ very own Christmas Lane

by Joanne

The decorated tree, stockings hung on the fireplace mantel, Grand-maman’s yummy tourtière in the oven, my nutcracker collection placed perfectly and a drive down Taffy Lane! We have many traditions at our house when it comes to celebrating Christmas. When we pull out the Christmas tree the kids eagerly and enthusiastically help us decorate it. They are so excited to hang their stockings by the fireplace and they love helping me place my nutcrackers throughout the house. But Christmas is not Christmas without a drive down Taffy Lane.

Taffy Lane is a small little street in Orléans that puts the Griswold’s to shame!

Aunt Bethany – Is your house on fire, Clark?
Clark Griswold – No, Aunt Bethany, those are the Christmas lights.
~ Quote from Christmas Vacation

It is known throughout Eastern Ontario as the place to go to see Christmas lights. The houses on the small lane are decorated with every Christmas light and inflatable imaginable. It is a sight to see.

My kids just love driving or even walking down the lane to see the beautiful lights. We look forward to seeing our old favorites.

If you are planning to head down to Taffy Lane you can either walk or drive. I suggest parking at Orleans United Church at the corner. It is a great walk and the lights are just beautiful. If you are walking with the kids be sure to watch for those driving slowly on the street. They are most likely looking at the beautiful lights and not at the road ahead.

You can get to Taffy Lane by taking Orleans Boulevard heading North (over the 174) and taking your first right onto Sugar Creek Way and then your first right on Taffy Lane.

Joanne is the proud mom of Amélie (8 years old) and Mathieu (5 years). She is new at blogging and you can find her at Our Money Pit.

25 Days of Christmas

by Sara

This year I'm participating in 25 Days of Christmas.  Thanks to Andrea, from a peek inside the fishbowl, our family has 25 holiday activities planned for the month of December:

"The month of December is a busy time of year for just about everyone. And no matter how much I tried, I found myself struggling to find a way to balance the fun of the holidays with my growing list of things that needed to be done. I knew I needed to get organized, but more importantly, I needed Christmas to be joyful again, not just for myself, but for my family.

A few years ago I hit upon a solution that helped me stay on top of the chaos and enjoy the season; I replaced our traditional drugstore brand chocolate-filled advent calendar with 25 small paper envelopes of my own design. I fill each one with a fun task, seasonal event, or family activity. No chocolate, no shopping, and no cheap gifts — just family time."

I chose to use my childhood advent calendar to store the slips of paper with our fun-filled activities but Andrea gives instructions on her blog for how to make your own calendar and advent envelopes.  My felt advent calendar has a special place in my heart.  It has been glued and taped back together countless and is nearing retirement.  Slips of paper are far more forgiving than little fingers pulling ornaments on/off velcro over and over again :)

Want to join in the fun?  Visit Andrea's post about 25 Days of Christmas for the 'how to'.  I'm keeping our list of activities pretty flexible: we've already had ot make some adjustments!

1. Make paper snowflakes: My 2.5 year old monkey was happy to cut slits into paper and my 4.5 year old firefighter insisted that my snowflakes were actually trees.  He decided to make a winter scene of our house and van, a Christmas tree (with lights), and a Christmas tree outside.  We ended up with 0 paper snowflakes but we had a lot of fun!
2. Listen to holiday music: No kids songs here, just old-fashioned Christmas tunes.  We played them all afternoon and the monkey pretended to play along on his guitar.
3. Read Christmas stories: The boys chose "Olive: The Other Reindeer" to take with them to their Grandparents. 
4. Santa Claus Parade: Perth Santa Claus Parade!
5. Family movie night: Switched out for #11 (Decorate the house) - we couldn't wait any longer to put the tree up :)
6. Christmas tree craft: I traced Christmas trees on construction paper, the firefighter cut them out and then covered them with glitter glue and holiday stickers.  I'd forgotten that even glitter glue leaves glitter everywhere...
7. Colour a Christmas picture
8. Write a letter to Santa
9. Snowman craft
10. Buy food for the Food Bank
11. Decorate the house
12. Lights on Taffy Lane
13. Make reindeer food
14. Visit Santa
15. Make Christmas cards
16. Make teacher Christmas cards
17. Wrap presents
18. Build a gingerbread house
19. Bake sugar cookies
20. Buy a toy for Toy Mountain
21. Play in the snow
22. Family swim
23. Lights on Parliament Hill
24. The pajama elf comes!
25. Family photo in front of the tree

What are your favourite holiday activities?

Sara is a photographer and mom to a 4.5-year-old ” firefighter” and 2.5-year-old “monkey”.  You can also find her at her blog, My Points of View.

Orleans Santa's Parade of Lights

by Vicky

I grew up in Ottawa's east end, and now I'm raising my own family here. Every year, for as long as I can recall, there has been a Santa Claus Parade in Orleans. It's a yearly tradition for many families. Yet I'm a bit sad to say that I waited until last year to actually experience it for the first time! Even though the parade wasn't a part of my childhood, it will definitely become a tradition for my kids.

Santa's Parade of Lights takes place on Saturday November 28th at 6:00pm, along St. Joseph Blvd, from Youville Dr to Prestone Dr. There are lots of great places to stand and watch the parade. However, with small children who get impatient quickly (like mine,) I would recommend standing somewhere closer to Youville Drive (at the start of the parade). That way you'll get to see Santa fairly quickly and then can head off for hot chocolate or to put the kids to bed. We waited closer to Place D'Orleans, and missed Santa all together since Joel got tired of waiting and wanted to go home. I would recommend going early and getting a good spot along the route because it fills up fast! Especially with young children, it can get hard to see.

We also didn't think to bring a toy or a cash donation collected by the Firefighters along the parade route, but many families did.

Bundled up!

The boys sat on their dads' shoulders for a better view. We all loved seeing the floats decorated with lights, and ooh and aah'd as each one drove by.

Babywearing!