Christmas Fun

We have had so much fun the past few days.

First, Daddy had off on Friday - so, of course we had fun that day! Jas has been saving a handful of vacation days for Mr. Gabriel's arrival. They have to be used by the end of the year, so we decided he might as well go ahead and take one on Friday. (He will now lose the rest of them...big bummer.)

Anyway, we started off the day Friday by doing a project all together that the children had been begging to do...and I didn't want to do alone with them - I knew I needed reinforcements!

We made cut-out SUGAR COOKIES!

I heart good ol' sugar cookies. My children do too. There is nothing healthy about these sugar cookies - they're just plain ol' yummy!

Notice the orange "United States" cookie cutter there in front of Noah. Since we don't do this sort of thing very often...the children didn't want to limit themselves to just Christmas cookie cutters when they had a box of 100 cookie cutters available to them ( I bought this set before we even had children, I knew we'd need it one day!).

So we had Christmas trees.

And shamrocks.



And snowmen.

And dinosaurs.

But most of all - we had a good time.

Sugar Cookie story-line...to be continued later in this post...

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And then on Friday evening, LaoLao and Papa took us to see the Light Show/Train Ride at our local area Swamp.

Yes, that's right...the swamp.

It's a local tradition. You might have to live here to understand how much fun a train ride through a swamp at night can be.


We got to ride a "big" train...


...and the children also got to ride a little train.




And what visit to the swamp would be complete without playing with alligators?

No, this one wasn't real...

...but we actually did see some (5?) that we're very real.

Thank you for the trip to the swamp, Laoli and Papa - we had so much fun with you!


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And then on Saturday our community group hosted a Christmas Celebration in the neighborhood (apartment complex, really) where we have begun a Bible club.

We brought in a bouncy house...


...and played other games and activities with the children.



We served hot dogs and hamburgers, chips...



...and snow cones, popcorn and cupcakes.

But the most important thing we shared with the approximately 100 children and adults who showed up?

Jesus.

His gospel. His love.

Lord, we pray that you use this celebration for your glory. We pray many seeds were planted and watered at this event.


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Over the weekend, we also finished up a little project that Jas oh-so-lovingly agreed to help me with. (read: ....a little project that Jas got roped into!)

THIS...is the new way we'll be displaying the Christmas cards we receive:

The pictures do not do this precious thing justice!

I have not been happy with how I displayed Christmas cards ever since we moved into this house. The best arrangement I could come up with was to stick all the cards and pictures up around the doorway from the kitchen to the dining room/school room using HandiTak. Even if I was super careful, I sometimes peeled off paint when I took the cards down after Christmas. Not. cool!

I knew there had to be a better way. (It only took me 8 years to figure this out, btw!)

So after some digging around on the internet, I combined some ideas I saw and talked with Jas and we came up with this idea.

An almost-4 ft. tall "tree" with dowel rods to hang cards on.



Jas used one piece of 1"x3", and cut it into the vertical "trunk" (which Elisabeth and I spray-painted Spruce Green) and the base (which LK and E painted craft paint Coffee Bean).

We put 5 graduated lengths of dowel rods (3/8") through the vertical trunk. (We painted the rods and let them dry thoroughly before inserting them through the trunk so that we'll be able to take them back out to make storing easier between uses.)

Oh...and we put a bow on top.

Bummer...we only had one binder clip on the premises.

Reminder to Jas: Could you please stop by Staples during your lunch and pick up some more binder clips so we can hang the rest of our cards up?!?!?

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...continued from the early section on Sugar Cookies...

(We had a not-good-at-ALL phone call during the cookie-making proceedings on Friday morning that threw a wrench in our (MY) well-laid plans. It was from the Tax Payer's Advocate Office about our tax return - but that is a whole 'nother post!))

...back to cookies...

So on Sunday after we got home from church (OH, how we love going to the early service at 9:30 and then getting home by 11 a.m.!) it was time to decorate all those cookies we'd baked on Friday!

Let's just say...what the kids lack in style...

...they make up for in sheer volume of sugar and icing!


(Daniel is soooo meticulous. He is totally going to be an engineer of some sort!)

WOW - did they have fun doing this!

"Sprinkling" is a term that is totally lost on them.



They much prefer "dumping".

But that is just more sugar to love...right???