Holiday Season

The past couple months have gone by really fast. Blogging kind of got away from me. Oh well. Here's a quick summary of the weeks before Christmas.

My first day own my own with three kids and no other adults went pretty well. We went to go visit Santa. James had me print out a picture of the 'Arctic Base' so that Santa would know what he was talking about. 

 

The picture with Santa turned out SO CUTE! This was Santa's idea, by the way. He's a clever guy.

We had plenty of snow to play in all through December. One day the kids decided that in addition to all their snow gear, they also needed snorkels.

The kids decided to paint rocks and pinecones for all their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. They begged me to send them in the mail. I told them I would, but to be honest, they never made it into the mail. Relatives, enjoy a picture of what I was supposed to send you for Christmas.

For the Ward Christmas party James, Eliza, and I went early to help set up. James kept saying, "I want a REAL job to do." (He was dissatisfied just playing around while the adults set up.) Luckily decorating the Christmas tree fit the bill.

Instead of making cookies for teachers this year, we just bought chocolate. Between both schools and gymnastics we there are a lot of teachers!

We went on many Christmas light drives. This was our favorite house to stop by.

James' preschool had an Open House. James was pretty excited to see Santa, but REALLY excited to see Mrs. Claus. He kept talking about her all day.

The day after the open house there was a Christmas party. I dropped James off about 5 minutes late, so I didn't hear the announcement that there would be a party that day. Remember, Christian had been taking him to school the last couple weeks, so I wasn't up on all the info. Ok, I probably should have known there was a party. Anyway, I came to pick him up at the usual time and he said, "Mom! You missed the party!" I felt so bad! They sang a song, decorated cookies and played games. I apologized and he said, "That's ok, I just sat by the other kid whose mom didn't come." As we were leaving James said, "I think Ms. Joan has a present for me." I was sure that it was a candy cane or something similar. I was shocked when he came out with a whole bag of stuff.

This is what was inside! Apparently the Water Company donated the toys to the kids.

Kate lost another tooth a couple days before Christmas.

The last week before Christmas we did finally get around to making some Christmas cookies.

A couple days before Christmas the kids made this onsie for Eliza. They were going to give it to her for Christmas, but they were too excited to wait and gave it to her right away. The whole thing was darling!