Christmas Activities

Here is a peek into our 2018 Christmas season...

Decorating our Home

It's always such a joy to kick off the Christmas season with some festive decorations. Adley helped out by painting a Christmas tree and some ornaments.

She even used tissue paper to create a star topper. What a talented little artist. :)

We hung Adley's tree on the wall in our entryway, so it was readily visible to any visitors to our home. Adley was always proud to show off her homemade tree.

All three kids were eager to help put the ornaments on our tree this year. Some children were a little more helpful than others... :) 

 Jaden and Cody remembered quite a few of their ornaments from years past, so it was fun to hear their commentary as they opened up the ornament boxes. Mommy's favorite part is taking out the boys' handmade classroom ornaments from each year. Our collection keeps building!

Ta-da.... all done!!

Christmas Playdate

Two sisters in Adley's playgroup invited our group over to their house for some fun Christmas activities this month. First, we finger-stamped a paper to make a string of colorful Christmas lights. Adley was pretty excited about this project.

Our second project was decorating Christmas sugar cookies. My friend Sara got out basting brushes for the kids to "paint" the icing on their cookies. What a brilliant idea this was! 

Sara had made tons of yummy sugar cookies and lots of colorful icing, so the kids each decorated several cookies.

All of the kids were pretty enthusiastic about the sprinkles. I'm not sure either of Adley's cookies actually made it home... she devoured them right away! What a fun morning with friends!

School Christmas Program

Cody and Jaden felt proud to dress up in their Christmas finest for their school's annual evening program. 

Adley, of course, demanded to be in a picture too. :)

Cousin Abby's kindergarten class sang up on stage at the same time as the 1st graders this year. It was fun to see all three kids singing together. 

Here is a video of one of their selections, Silent Night. The kids even knew sign language for this one.

Every single one of our Houston-area family members came out to support Jaden, Cody, and Abby with their program. What an honor! Jon and Chelsea's family went home after the program to get their tired young boys to bed, and Jason had to stay at church for the remainder of the school program. The rest of us, however, enjoyed a yummy ice cream treat at Dairy Queen to celebrate a great program!

Classroom Christmas Party

This year, I signed up to organize the Christmas party for Cody's class. Another mom and I worked together to coordinate 3 stations for the kids-- a cupcake decorating station, a craft/activity station, and a minute-to-win-it game station. I facilitated 3 minute-to-win-it games for the kids, so I only got pictures of this station. The first game we played was a snowball (marshmallow) toss.

The second was a snowman paper plate/balloon game (we counted how many times the kids could hit the balloon in the air without it touching the ground).

Finally, the kids attempted to wrap some friends in toilet paper to look like snowmen.

The kids seemed to enjoy their time at the party, and I liked how the station-format kept the kids a little more under control! :)

I didn't help out with Jaden's classroom party (I signed up to plan his end-of-the-year one), but Jaden's teacher sent me some photos from their afternoon. The kids were apparently paired up to decorate their friends as Christmas trees. Jaden volunteered to be the tree!

Decorating Graham Cracker Houses

For Cody's classroom party, I was in charge of making the icing for the cupcake decorating station, and I completely over-estimated the amount!! Better to be safe than sorry, I guess! With some of the leftover frosting, I decided to let Jaden and Cody create some gingerbread/graham cracker houses once we got home that afternoon. The boys put a LOT of time into decorating their houses.

Here is Cody's completed masterpiece (and an accompanying video explaining some portions of his home):

  

Jaden was very proud of the Christmas lights all over his house and roof.

Christmas Outfits

Many, many thanks go to Grammy and Papa for finding and purchasing these adorable Christmas outfits for our three children this year. They all looked so sharp for our Christmas services! Thanks, Mom and Dad, for your generosity!

Amidst all these fun, busy seasonal activities, we are so grateful for the gift of our Savior, Jesus, who is the sole reason that we celebrate Christmas. Praise be to God for this indescribable Gift!

Dec Misc

A few happenings in our family from December...

Children's Museum

Early in the month, Adley and I visited the Children's Museum after picking up a 5K race packet for Mommy. Adley is at a perfect age for enjoying the museum! Her attention span at each exhibit is VERY short, so we usually see a little of everything multiple times over. :)

I loved hearing her babble in this kitchen about what food items she was carrying. Adley loved stuffing all kinds of items in the fridge.

Adley was very excited to find a little dump truck that looked exactly like one she owns at home! Unfortunately, that meant that she believed it actually WAS hers and didn't want anyone else to touch the dump truck... 

Adley also enjoyed taking the pegs out of this giant lite-brite and pretending to drive the car. 

When we were nearing the end of our visit, the museum's actual fire alarms went off and everyone was asked to exit the building. The kids visiting the museum were all so thrilled to see a REAL firetruck arrive to check everything out. It turned out that the alarm had been triggered by (we think) some kind of water leak/electrical issue at a neighboring store, so we they allowed everyone to re-enter the building right away after they shut off the alarms. What an unexpected adventure!

Train 41

On the way home from the museum, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to stop by the railroad tracks to see the arrival of Presidential Train 41. I had heard only the night before that this famous train would be making a historical journey up to College Station, TX, carrying the body of the late President Bush. I figured since Adley and I would be crossing right over these tracks on our return trip from the museum, I might as well stop and witness a bit of history! A good-sized crowd of onlookers had already gathered in the area.

Adley had already fallen asleep in the car briefly on our trip home, so she was fairly content just snuggling in my arms for a good portion of the time we waited (about 30 min) for the train to arrive.

When the train finally arrived, it was traveling much faster than I had anticipated!

The train was there and gone in mere seconds! My mom had actually stopped at a friend's house to observe the train moving through too. She got a perfect picture of Bush's funeral casket car as well as the caboose.

Here is a video of the last half of the train passing by Adley and me. We enjoyed that we were able to be there and honor this wonderful Christian man!

Jingle Bell Run

Our family has signed up for this fun winter run several years in a row. This year's forecast, however, did not look great. It was fairly chilly and VERY wet and rainy on race day. Some members of our family (probably wisely) chose to just stay home. Kim and I decided to still brave the elements and participate. The rain was never very heavy but it was a steady cold drizzle the entire time, so we were quite chilled by the end of the race!

I ended up getting 4th place in my age division and kept up a 8.38 min/mile pace. After the race, we got a great stash of treats from the vendors. Most vendors who were there told us to take treats in multiples since the run drew a lot fewer participants this year. Our kids definitely enjoyed the extra cookies and granola bars we brought home. One race vendor was actually giving out free nachos! It was a strange post-race snack, especially early in the morning, but they still tasted great!

Kindermusic

Sometime this month I just happened to see an ad for an opening of a new music school in our area. They were offering a free kindermusic class as a way to draw people in and introduce the public to their school. I was excited to try out a class for Adley. She played with various percussion instruments...

listened to the leader sing and play on her guitar, and enjoyed playing with this fun parachute as we sang. I don't think we enjoyed the class enough to pay for a full session, but it was fun to try out and to do something new!

Park Playdate

My sister Kim and I enjoy meeting for occasional runs. This particular morning, we met at a park and let Adley and Nathan play on the playground after their time in the jogging stroller. They were both fairly good sports about riding along with us. (Nathan was a good influence on Adley!)

Aunt Kim had remembered to bring bread to feed the funny nutria animals in the park. Adley LOVED this part.

Reynolds Family Open House

One December weekend, a church family invited us to their large Christmas party open house. This family owns a lot of land, so there was a LOT of activities to keep our kids busy. They all loved their time here-- zip lining and swinging,

making an ornament craft, riding horses,

feeding the horses,

and going on a hayride with friends!

All three kids even got to try their hand at driving the tractor for the hayride with Mr. Reynolds. Adley didn't last long at all as a helper-driver, but the boys loved the opportunity. What a fun party!