So much life here: Chritmas Night Wrap Up

What did our December hold?

1. Lots and lots of crafts-

Gingerbread houses - Teig is always happy if there is candy involved, as long as he gets some! Joren mostly ate candy instead of using it on his house. Eirik loved decorating his trees. I got organic with my brown and white stone cottage. Paul's fireplace was one of the highlights. We all had fun picking out the candy at the store and using our creativity to make cottages. Next year we are going to make gingerbread nativity scenes.

Making Sugar Cookies

Eirik saw a terrarium with birds and nests in it one morning in a magazine and gave Joren and I an "assignment" to make one just the same while he was at school. This is what we came up with.
Flubber is a great concoction made with borax and elmers glue. It is so fun!

1.In our home school Joren has been making itsy bitsy letter books that we learned about from Eirik's class. 2. Joren's wreath 3. Eirik's tree from school 4. Joren wanted to make a paper flower and plant it, so here it is. 4. Joren wanted to make a black owl and a (6) black woodpecker. I really let Joren lead all of our school activities. I just direct him so he stays excited. It's fun to see his creativity develop and see him have deliberate opinions about how things should be made. One of my favorite things is when he says, "mom, can we please do a craft?" (REALLY!!?? Awesome!)

1. The boys painted wooden dinosaur skeletons and then we put glitter on them for some of their uncles. 2. Joren and I collected sticks outside and then glued a bunch of our assorted buttons and stuff on the "tree" we made. We love glue guns. 3. This is Teig's stocking that I made this year. It's all felt except the tweed trees. I think it turned out wonderful. 4. All month I horded empty toilet paper rolls, paper rolls and wrapping paper rolls so we could make a bunch of these cardboard and pipe cleaner snowflake ornaments. Fun and easy. 5. I used my former roomate Cindy Ferguson's template from her paper cutting blog to paint this design on a bunch of dish cloths for some of my close friends. 6. We gathered up some small plastic animals and put glitter on them for the little tree that Dr. Manz gifted us. They turned out so cute.

2. Karake party for all of Grekin's employees at Peking Palace- Paul's work parties are some of the only rare times when I get to interact with people not from our church that are not children. I have not danced for ages and this was a really fun party. Paul started off the karaoke with the song: "Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit" It was perfect and really got the party going. He was such a natural on stage. A total ham. We worked the crowd and really had fun with it. I was really enamored! Such a handsome rock star. It was fun to mingle with all of his co-workers and have an all I could eat meal. I think Paul had a good time but I probably made him dance a little more than he wanted to. Oh well. :)

3. Eirik's first kindergarten party- Erik made me a clay bread warmer, this cute snowman, and he used his money to buy me this beautiful bracelet. He loves giving gifts so much. His list to Santa says: "1. I would like my family to be happy. 2. I want a T-Rex tooth. 3. Tor to be happy. Love Eirik" Isn't his picture of his family sweet!? I love this kid.

4. Zoo Christmas lights with Patty and John

5. 12 Days of Christmas for our neighbors the Whiting's, and a few deliveries to friends and neighbors. I made these flowers for Jenny to make a mural on her girls bedroom wall. The boys and I had a good time trying to be sneaky and not get caught. They caught us on day 5 though. We had a good time giving them gifts every night. The first night we gave them 1/2 of a pumpkin pie. I cut the half into 4 pieces and arranged them to look like an angel and drew on a head with halo with marker on the plate. It was a fun spontaneous clever moment. Wish I had a picture. We took Merry Mix and homemade hot chocolate mix to neighbors.

6. Christmas Eve at Anona and Trevor Davis's house with Erin and Jed Walker, Jenny and Randy Balmforth and all their kids. We all brought soup and bread and hor d'ovres. After Anona played the piano while we all sang Christmas songs. I sometimes feel like our four families are pretty critical in how our ward works. We are all moving away at the same time in 1 1/2 years. It's going to be a big change for our ward. I'm sure we will stay in touch with these families. They are our family here in MI. It's fun to see our kids in this picture and imagine them all older together someday.

7. Paul and I sang in church- "Once in Royal David's City" and the kids sang with the primary "Because I have been given much" Eirik knew every word and was by far the loudest voice. At the beginning of the song he was one beat ahead for a few measures and our primary chorister had to run over and get his attention because he was leading the whole group too fast! He is dynamic! Joren thought it was pretty cool to drum his hands on the wooden railing he was leaning on. It echoed through the chapel so he kept doing it. He knew some of the words and they were both so totally endearing up there. I loved it! Unfortunately, while they were singing, Paul was in the hall with Teig and because Teig was very tired he fell and hit his head on the edge of a door and sliced his forehead open. Right after church we had to go get durobond stitches for him. Poor guy!! He will probably have a scar. What a Christmas present.

8. Many presents given: my boys painted these for Katie and Danny.