Celebrating the holidays with Windy and Friends Appisodes

I remember being a kid and counting down the days until Christmas. The anticipation grew and grew EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Things got really exciting when school let out for the holidays. I remember chatting with friends about what we hoped Santa would leave under the tree and then wishing them a happy holiday and joking “I’ll see you next year!” The first day of Christmas break was when things started to feel real. CHRISTMAS WAS JUST DAYS AWAY!!!

Yesterday was the last day of school for Bean, and that means that today was the first day of Christmas break. The hubs worked today so that meant that I was alone to fuel those feelings of anticipation. I had a special treat to share with the kids. A brand new app, Windy and Friends and a Windy and Friends Advent Calendar. 

Are you familiar with Windy and Friends? They are a crafty mamas dream come true! Visit the Windy and Friends website and the first thing you see is “Welcome to our handmade world.” You truly feel like you stepped into a handmade world when you hang out with Windy. 

Windy is the brainchild of Vancouver moms Robin Mitchell Cranfield and Judith Steedman. They love using crafts and found objects to tell stories. I remember working at a bookstore in my early 20’s and selling Robin and Judith’s books to customers. We sold a ton to parents for their kids, but I think we sold just as many to creative people who came into the store and fell in love with the unique look of the books. The books (which are now sadly out of print) had activities on the inside of the dust jacket and some even came with cd’s of original music. 

 

 Robin and Judith decided to make their books interactive and created a series of Windy & Friends Appisodes. What is an appisode you ask? An appisode is an interactive story that you can download to your iphone, ipad or android device. You can explore each appisode by touching and swiping your screen. You can also put the appisode on autoplay mode to have the story read to you. Each of the appisodes come with two bonus games that are unique to that episode. 

As a bonus, that crafty mamas will love, the appisodes also have activities that you can do after you are done exploring the story. Activities include craft projects, recipes, music and more! 

To get the kids into the Christmas spirit this morning, I surprised them with the appisode Mild & Mellow’s Holiday Light. The kids snuggled on the couch and interacted with the app together. 

Both of the kids were completely engrossed in the app. Bean loved decorating gingerbread men with candy and icing sugar.

And Turtle loved making music in the Windy and Friends soundboard. 

After we played with the app on the phone, we went online and started creating using the online activities. Later in the afternoon when Turtle went down for his nap and it was time for Bean to have some quiet time, she asked if she could play with Windy and friends again. 

 

My crafty girl is completely smitten with the loveable characters and even asked if we could go to Michaels to buy some peg dolls so she could create her own Windy characters!

You can find the full list of the Windy and Friends appisodes in iTunes or on the Windy and Friends website.  

Looking for even more Windy fun? Check out the Windy & Friends Advent calendar. The crafts, music and recipes in the calendar are fabulous. I’m going to keep it bookmarked for fun activities to do all year long. 

My kiddos are officially have the holiday spirit and I can’t wait to spend the next few days leading up to Christmas  with them, anticipating Christmas day. 

What are you doing with your little ones to get them into the Christmas spirit?

Thank you to the Windy and Friends team for sharing the Windy and Friends Appisodes with me. All thoughts and opinions are 100% my own.