Eve in stockings
When Eve came into the kitchen with a candy cane on her glasses I immediately had flashbacks of decorating Uncle Carl's glasses, and Grandpa Tom's beard. Fond, silly memories! Eve loved the idea of decorating her glasses too. I love that people continue to humor me in this respect! :)
These two have nothing to do with holiday traditions, just silly Eve-ness.
French braid, second attempt. She was very happy.
Decorating a bandaid, carefullly placed over a non-existent boo boo.
I was hoping to get this up first thing Saturday evening, while it was all still fresh in my mind, but alas, life takes priority and now it’s Tuesday afternoon and I’m trying to cram it in to the 15 minutes I have before leaving to pick up the kids and hit the swimming pool. Sooo… here goes!
We had a festive weekend. I signed the kids up for an Elves Workshop held at Lex’s school. I see ads for it every year but this is the first year they were both old enough. The program is run by a local high school youth-in-action group (or something like that!) and they have craft projects and snacks for the kids. They had a blast! They decorated cookies and candles and ornaments. Eve was pleased to find a friend from her class there as well. When I picked the kids up two hours later they were jacked up on holiday sugar and happy as… well, as children at Christmas!! :)
They headed straight for the cookie decorating station!
I took five pictures of these two silly girls and this was the best one I got. For some reason I could not get two sugared up four year olds to stand still for me! Imagine that! :)
We came home for lunch (I was hungry anyway!) and then piled into the car to get a Christmas tree. I had the kids all bundled appropriately, but I forgot one tiny thing. Boots!! We tromped through slushy, muddy fields to pick the perfect tree. Actually, Eve led us right to the slushy side, promptly stepped in a not-quite-frozen puddle and spent the rest of the time walking around in soaking wet “party shoes.” Opps! I carried her to the other side of the field which was much drier and we were quick about picking a tree. Luckily it was a great field and finding a good one wasn’t that hard.
Should we get this tree?
Or this one?
There's our tree! And our very handsome lumberjack!
Back home we had some much needed quiet time (in which Alan put up tree and I put on the lights) and then we cracked open the big box of ornaments and went to town! It was fun, fun, fun! The kids were enthralled and Lex kept declaring the tree “all done!” because he was in a huge hurry to turn on the lights. When it really was all done we plugged in the tree lights, turned off the living room lights, and properly admired our tree. Then I wrangled them all for a family photo :)
Eve insisted on unwrapping and carrying several fragile ornaments at a time. Then she would get frustrated because she couldn't hold them all while hanging them one at a time. Logic eventually caught up to her enthusiasm.
Lex was very careful and gentle in his decorating efforts this year.
Just one final tweak to the star...
Ohhhh..... ahhhh..... rejoice!
Merry Christmas!!
The magical view from under the tree.
After dinner Lex put his feelings into dry-erase artwork.
Lex drawing a holiday masterpiece
1... 2... 3... Christmas tree!
Just for fun, here’s last year’s tree decorating post… by the same name. Creative, I am not. Apparently I like the tree better back in the corner. Something I should probably remember for next year. So far I’m happy with it by the closet this year.
We had a holly jolly weekend. The kids went to an Elves Workshop, we got our tree, decorated it, put up Christmas lights outside (I’ve been working on that for weeks now and finally, maybe, found a solution that works!) However, I’m going to leave you hanging for the details. I’m tired! I just finished paying bills (excitement overload!) and chatting with Joyce on…. Google talk or something… and now I’m tired. I’ll try to get this new fangled technology turned on again soon and post some holly jolly photos! :)
We had our December Cocktails & Crafts party this weekend, hosted by my friend Erin. Each month there is a slightly different crowd, some regulars and some newcomers. I’m interested to see, if we can keep the momentum going, whether it will end up being a consistent group or ever evolving.
Erin made homemade eggnog, which was nutmegy and delicious! I’ve never actually had eggnog before because I don’t like eggy things (or eggs in general, I suppose), but I decided to be brave and try it (like I tell the kids a hundred times a day!) and it was great!
She also made snowflake quesedillas (I can’t get spell check to help me with this word! Tortillas, cheese, snowflake shapes, you know what I mean!) with lots of sides.
For a craft project we made gingerbread houses with graham crackers, special seasonal gingerbread graham crackers! :) They are delicious. The kids decorated their graham crackers with gusto and lots of “one for the house, one for me” motivation. Then the grownups stepped in to help with assembly. Some houses went up a little more smoothly than others, but I think everyone had fun and no one walked away without at least some frosting on them!
Step One: Don't eat the graham crackers
Step Two: Affix candy to graham crackers with a liberal dose of frosting.
Step Three: Eat candy while your mom attemts gingerbread house construction magic.
Step Four: Go play and let your house dry.
Done! Can't you just feel the sugar coursing through your body!?!
Then it was time to let the wild rumpus begin! Take one part “Friday after a busy week,” add in two parts sugar, and three parts little boy and you have quite the excitement! When we left everyone was exhausted. Lex came home and ate dinner (heaven forbid he eat quesedillas!) while I bathed Eve, who had previously bathed herself in frosting and sugar!
Eve found a quiet area to take a break and eat a snack.
My bright-eyed boy!
Wild boys!! I made my kids bring their gingerbread houses home instead of eating them on the spot, so they weren't quite as jacked up on the sugar as these three wild boys! :) All they're missing is some frosting war paint!
I think a good night was had by all! :)
Pretty houses. They made a nice addition to our table decorations. A short-lived addition! We were all picking at them by 6:30 the next morning.
This week the kids decide to write Christmas lists for Santa. I love this time of year because whenever they ask for anything I just say “put it on your list.”
I LOVE that he smiles when he sees the camera. That makes me so happy! (Ignore his crazy hair. I don't know what's going on with it these days.)
Can you guess what Eve wants?
The next day Eve wanted to add more to her list and Lex helped her. They are so sweet when they work together.
The lists
Eve's drawing (well, her coloring in my very rough drawing) and her name written in very small letters. She has been practicing that.
Enjoy! Let me know if you need help deciphering. On Lex’s list the first two items he saw in stores and the rest came from an SI Kids magazine special feature on Gift Giving. I wonder who they think their child readers are going to be GIVING these gifts to… hmmmm….
Banish (or finish!) this…
and eat this…
Do you think this will get messy?? It did! But it’s so yummy it was worth the mess, and it will keep me going for awhile :)
That was the message we received at both parent/teacher conferences today. The kids are happy, well adjusted children. Eve’s teacher wrote “Eve appears to be happy, content and confident.” and “She is kind to all.” Lex’s teacher said he is a fun and funny kid who knows how to have fun and knows how to stop when asked. She also said that he is all kid, not growing up too fast like many of his classmates. As an example, she said that the “boyfriend/girlfriend” thing has been going around and kids were even talking about kissing. One day she spoke with the class about it and said no, no, no. There will be no boyfriends, no girlfriends, no kissing. Lex raised his hand and nervously asked if it was ok if he kissed his family, because he loves his family. She said he really seemed concerned that she was going to say no :) I think we’re doing a good job raising these kids!
Speaking of kissing, we were at the aquatic center with one of Lex’s classmates the other day and the three kids were swimming around the current pool. At one point this little boy said to Eve, “If you can catch me, you can kiss me!” and he swam off. She looked at him, looked at me, shrugged, and kept swimming. I tried not to burst out laughing!
Last year (2010)
This year (2011)
The kids are full of crazy this weekend. Eve is a constant source of noise (woofing, meowing, hooting, chugging, etc. constant!) and Lex has been very stubborn and obstinate. Between the two of them it has been a draining weekend. However, there have been a few sweet moments in there. Last night Alan and Lex were fighting at dinner time. When Alan brought a screaming Lex upstairs, Eve went to the white board and wrote:
A love note to her brother. I wonder if it was to make him feel better or to make herself feel better. Sweet, either way.
This is a better picture of the nativity people with their new gingerbread necklaces, courtesy of a very thoughtful Eve.
A very fasionable nativity scene.
Today the two of them were so buggy and picky (those are the best terms I can come up with at the moment) so we decided to separate them. Alan and Lex went out to run errands while Eve and I stayed home to work on a few projects. She mellowed right down and was sweet and helpful. One project was an idea I got from Pinterest (great site!) for icicle trim on the mantle. Theirs came out better than mine, but Eve and I had fun making it all the same. She undecorated the mantle for me:
Helpful Eve. She did a great job keeping the advent boxes closed and in order when she took them all down :)
Then we put up the icicles (sparkly white felt) and Alan got back in time to help redecorate the mantle.
Santa Alan and crazy Eve - together they make a wacky, yet sometimes helpful, pair!
By this point the boys were home and Lex wanted to do more blog posts, so I let Alan and Eve redecorate the mantle while I helped Lex. That part of the evening was quite nice :)
Kinda cute, I think. You can't tell from the picture, but the white felt is sparkly and pretty. I think they will straighten out over time too, with a little help from gravity!
Lex had another obstinate fight at dinner tonight, resulting in stress eating on my part (hello KAF burgundy chocolate chunks!) but bedtime went smoothly and the day ended well enough. Now, to get myself into bed at a reasonable hour…
