Merry CHRISTmas!!

I hope everyone has been enjoying this Christmas season. We've been doing our best to make the most of our time together as a family and it has been wonderful!

Our tree search fiasco continued after we put out tree up....it ended up falling over after about 3 days!! It's all good now, though, and the kiddos even posed in front of it sporting matching sweaters made by their aunt a couple Christmases ago!!


We haven't made it out to play in the snow yet, but we've made marshmallow snowmen a couple of times....

...and these popsicle snowmen! Morgan saw a kit for them in the Oriental Trading catalog and really wanted to make them....I was excited because we actually had the supplies to make them on our own! :-)

Morgan has been working on gingerbread in her preschool class. They sent this home (blank) for us to decorate as a family and we had a lot of fun! I wish I could show you some others that kids made in their classes-REALLY creative!!

In her class's newsletter they sent the recipe to make gingerbread dough (to play with), so we went to town making ornaments....

She's also been reading all sorts of different Gingerbread Men/Boy/Girl stories in her class, so when a friend of the family gave our family a huge Gingerbread man, I knew I HAD to make it for Morgan's class too!

We also made a paper chain-it's such an easy craft for a 4 year old! We also made paper snowflakes, when we were snowed in, to hang from it. :-)

The kiddos also get their own Christmas cards from a friend of the family and their Grandma and Papa. This first one is from the friend. Blake got to decorate a tree and Morgan's was a gingerbread house sticker puzzle.

The kiddos grandparents send stickers in the cards for the kiddos too and one sheet had the characters from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I had to laugh at how Blake was using his imagination when he made this...I hope Santa and Mrs. Claus are okay ;-)

We also celebrated Christmas with Rich's parents this past Sunday. The kiddos got to stay overnight and wake up in the morning and open presents. Plus we had a BIG breakfast and stayed most of the day relaxing just as if it were Christmas....it was a REALLY nice time! (Rich's parents and other brother left to be with my brother-in-law for Christmas. His deployment date got moved to Dec. 26th...there was no way he would have been able to come home for Christmas.)

And I have a tree skirt for our tree now!!! We've been using an old flannel sheet for the past 5 years, but now we have one that I think fits our family quite well :-)

I've been busy cooking and baking for the family gatherings we have the next few days. I'm also excited about a very special birthday party for Jesus that I've been planning too! Christmas day, with the kiddos and my nieces, we'll be making a cake that has meaning and verses to go with every aspect of it. We'll also be reading The Legend of the Candy Cane and having a candy cane hunt with rhyming clues to different parts of my parents' house. Plus we'll be reading the Christmas story and coloring nativity print-offs. I hope to make this a tradition. I think it's neat way for the kiddos to always remember what Christmas is really about. (Thanks to Ticia at Adventures in Mommydom for the ideas!)

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas this year! Enjoy time with family and remember that the greatest gift this holiday season is Jesus! :-)