Thursday, December 11, 2008

Decorations, Celebrations

Despite my best intentions, I seem to have trouble finding time to keep up with blogging. I miss a day or two and suddenly I have so much I need to blog about that it seems overwhelming. What follows is a lame attempt at bringing you up to speed.

Monday night for Family Home Evening, we made ornaments. Kennedy had learned at school how to make the yarn wrapped popscicle sticks ornaments so we thought it would be fun for her to teach the rest of us how to make them. We also decided to try making peppermint candy ornaments. (Melt peppermint candies in the oven to form wreaths and other shapes.) The yarn ornaments were a big success.






We had a lot of fun making them and almost everyone was able to actively participate. (Renie did lots of grabbing the yarn and running off with it, but she did finally sit on my lap for a while "helping" me make one for her.) The peppermint candy ornaments did not work. They never melted. Maybe I'll try again with a different brand of candy. For refreshments we had yummy Chocolate Crinkle cookies and hot cocoa. (For the cookie recipe click here. They are divine.)

Tuesday we had our first snow day of the season. We got freezing rain and six inches of snow. We survived it OK. i got lots of housework done and the kids had fun playing indoors and out. That is, after the initial couple of hours when they haven't figured out how to use their time and they just fight with each other.

Wednesday I hosted a cookie exchange and book club at my home. I spent the morning baking my cookies, baking bread, making a vegetable beef soup, preparing hot cocoa in the crockpot, and baking cranberry bars. And finishing up the cleaning. Guests arrived at 10:00 and we had a lovely, though noisy (nine kids) time. For book club this week, everyone brought their favorite childrens Christmas book to share. It was such a great idea. I have added several of them to my Must-Have list. I shared, what else, Christmas Day In The Morning. Everyone brought delicious cookies. We packed a sampling of each up for each lady and still had some for dessert after our bread and soup.

Wednesday night we went to the school to see Julia's class perform 3 little plays. Julia was a monkey in The Lion and The Mouse.



After the plays we enjoyed a dinner of hot dogs, chips, carrots, apples, brownies, and lemonade.

Julia and her best friend Rachel

The boys doing what they do best- packing the food and drink away.

Gee..Can you tell they're sisters?!


Julia was very cute in the play- all the kids did a fantastic job remembering their lines and performing with expression.

I'm going to throw in a few pictures of some of our decorations. I love when the house is decorated for Christmas. Lincoln was commenting the other night on how pleasant it is to sit and prepare our lessons for church surrounded by glowing lights and the Christmas tree as Christmas music plays quietly in the background.




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