Saturday, January 1, 2011

Making a list and checking it twice

Eamon spent a lot of time practicing JUST IN CASE he was needed at the very last second to fill in for the Drummer Boy in the manger scene.

I heard it all year long that teachers REALLY don't want baked goods as Christmas gifts. But, seriously, who doesn't want cake balls dipped in chocolate and decorated like Santa and his reindeer? I mean, I can't even imagine a world like that. (Plus, I got them gift cards, okay? Everyone told me all the teachers actually want is GIFT CARDS, but that is so boring by itself, I had to make something to go along with them.)

Santa Claus did INDEED come to town and we visited him! If you expand the collage above, you'll see that Liam REFUSED to smile because he was at a complete loss about what to ask Santa for at this juncture of December and was SO DISTRAUGHT that he could barely handle himself. Thankfully Daddy solved all of these problems (as he is wont to do with Liam since they are basically the same person plus or minus some beard hairs) by finding Santa's phone number later in the month and letting the boys call to leave him a voice mail with the ONE sought-after item they wanted for Christmas. Sadie was not too enthused about Santa and Santa wasn't rough and tumble enough to handle Little Miss so she wiggled out of his grasp almost immediately. She liked the wooden Santa outside much better though! Eamon ran right up to Santa and told him he wanted "a yellow school bus" and then proceeded to go outside and commandeer Santa's sleigh and reindeer like he owned the place.

Lots of crafting occurred all month long and despite my Dyson (my most prized possession by far), it will be months and months until all of the glitter and pine needles are removed from between the floorboards here. We had a ton of pine cones we saved from last year. Liam made a Christmas tree with his (second from the left on top) and Colin and I made penguins from ours (Yes, it IS actually a Martha Stewart craft, since everyone always accuses me of that anyway. But that's the ONLY one from her, I swear.) Popsicle sticks seemed to be the preferred medium of the year and Liam decided to make a Santa with his while Colin made a Christmas tree (top right). Eamon painted the entire craft table white and then glued a lot of buttons and such all over it before sprinkling it with glitter, but I forgot to photograph it because I was counting to a million in my head so I wouldn't kill him.

As usual, the most fun activity of the month is always the gingerbread construction. And as usual, the boys did a fantastic job this year. I think this is definitely their best one yet. We went all out and made a shed, many Christmas trees and a snowman to grace the yard around our compound. Next year I imagine they'll add a hot tub, labyrinth and moat, but I'll leave that up to them. I helped almost not at all so all that you see is their work, minus the architecture which I was responsible for and which actually withstood the test of time this year and didn't crash down accidentally. (It did crumble purposefully a day later, of course)

No comments: