Schleicher Family Christmas - Part 1

Ever since Jason and I have been married, our extended families have taken turns each year getting together for Christmas. Since 2018 was a Schleicher family Christmas year, Jason's parents and his older sister and brother-in-law traveled down from Minnesota to celebrate Christmas with us in Texas. We loved time hanging out with Grandpa and Grandma at our home-- playing with toys,

reading books,

playing basketball,

and dancing!

We hosted Andy and Beth for a few days and enjoyed doing puzzles with Uncle Andy.

The entire extended family got together for quite a few activities and celebrations including Ian's and Ryan's school Christmas program (here Adley and Nathan are keeping busy waiting for the program to start!),

an entertaining white elephant gift exchange organized by Grandma and Grandpa,

(complete with hand-sewn pillowcases gifted to all of the grandkids by Grandma to help collect all the white elephant goodies),

and a birthday celebration for Kim, Jon, and Andy.

One afternoon, the oldest grandkids worked together on a special project-- creating their own Christmas shirts to be worn at my cousin's ugly sweater themed rehearsal dinner later in the month.

The kids each selected their own Christmas design for the moms to cut out of felt, and then they added decorations-- pom poms, puffy paint, sequins, jingle bells, and more.

Some of the kids got particularly excited about the puffy paint, so it took a few days for the shirts to fully dry. In the end though, all the "ugly sweater" shirts turned out so cute! The kids were all quite proud of their work.

On Christmas Day, we all celebrated the birth of Jesus together by worshiping at Trinity.

After church, we met for a yummy meal and gift opening at Jon and Chelsea's. Here is what the chaos of 8 grandchildren trying to sort and open gifts looks like!

Cody and Jaden were quite excited about their gifts!

Adley actually missed the large group gift opening since she was napping but had her own personal gift opening later in the afternoon. She definitely enjoyed all the attention AND her fun new presents!

What a blessing it was to spend time with this wonderful crew over Christmas! We are so thankful for a family that loves the Lord and seeks to serve Him.

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!