I started off the Christmas season by being the bringer of the treats for Malia’s class Christmas party on Dec. 1. We made some nut free melted snowman cookies. It was super fun.
For one of the activities in our yearly activity advent, I took Matthew and Malia to paint ceramics at Color Me Mine. When I made the reservation, the girl told me to plan an hour tops for kids of their ages. At the 2 ½ hour mark, I had to tell the kiddos that we needed to hurry and finish so we could get home in time to cook dinner. To say that they enjoyed themselves would be an understatement. They loved it. They both have an eye for detail that I did not realize and took time to paint things in just a certain way. Malia had hers all done when she discovered that they had glitter paint, so she had to repaint several parts to include glitter. And I was jealous that they got to paint and I had to supervise. 😉
Picking up their glazed and fired pieces a few days later was very exciting for them as well. They had to unwrap them before we left the studio. They couldn’t wait until we got home.
We also made cinnamon salt dough ornaments. Matthew and Malia had a great time rolling and cutting the ornaments. My favorite part was the fact that the house smelled fantastic for days!
Matthew crafted a nativity from Lego. Malia was helping, but she got bored pretty quickly and wandered away to do something else.
I got to go to the MoTab Christmas concert with two of my sisters. This is the first time I’ve ever been and it was super fun! On our way we walked past the Macy’s Christmas window displays which are made entirely out of candy. They do them every year ( a tradition they carried over when they bought out ZCMI) and I’ve seen them before but they are always eye catching and amazing.
Malia had a dance recital. She takes tap and ballet and although she says she likes both, she seems to catch on to the tap steps easier. Ballet doesn’t come as easily. It will be interesting to see if her interest in ballet (and dance in general) continues or if it dwindles. She says she likes dance but sometimes we get a negative reaction to the weekly dance lessons. I guess we’ll see how things go. I’m not the kind of mom who will force her daughter to stay in dance lessons just because I enjoyed it so much.
Daniel and Nathan don’t care all that much about most of our advent activities, but they were super stoked (yes, I’m a child of the ‘80s) about the strawberry Santas. In fact, all the kiddos liked it so much that we bought more berries and did it twice.
As always, Christmas Eve meant dinner with my parents and siblings and the yearly reenactment of the nativity story. I feel like we’ve been very blessed that all or our kids have cousins their age with whom they have become good friends. It has taken Matthew the longest to find that cousin since there are none just his age, but in the past year his cousin Drew (who is a year older) has become his cousin buddy. They both love sports and as they have gotten to know each other better they have become comrads. Matthew looks forward to their time together. They opted to be shepherds this year. Malia and Kate both choose to be angels. Nathan, Jacob and Ella were this year’s wise acres…I mean wise men. And Daniel was a fabulous sport and was willing to be Joseph when none of the younger kids (or older ones) wanted the job.
Daniel had a band Christmas concert. Nathan had a choir Christmas concert, but he didn’t actually sing. By then he had been sick for nearly a month, the doctor had given him a note to stay home from school for the next week and the parents had agreed with said note so Nathan went just long enough to play the piano for the number he was accompanying. He wasn’t happy to be out of school the entire last week before Christmas, but he had been pushing himself, not taking time to rest and recover, which led to his extended illness. We put our metaphorical feet down and made him stop so he could get better. He’s on the way to better now and should be back to normal before too much longer.
So yeah, busy month. Mostly fun stuff though, minus one sick Nathan and two colds for me. I love that my little ones are home with me all month and while rumors and speculation abound right now, I’m hoping our elementary will stay in year-round school so we can continue to have our whirlwind month of fun.
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