Countdown to Christmas ... 2

For our Countdown activity today, it wasn't really a surprise, because the kids saw me as I was getting everything ready, but we made cookies for Santa!  Now, usually we do a quick cookie-baking activity on Christmas Eve, but we wanted this to be a really fun activity to go along with our countdown, so we made it extra special.

I made some brown sugar cookies, which isn't quite as easy to roll out as regular sugar cookie dough.  I found that out after I made up the dough unfortunately.  But, hey, still worked.  Just got 15 cookies out of it instead of the 6 DOZEN it called for!  Had my trusty stormtrooper spatula with me too (thanks, Cara!).

I got the table all set up with aprons, placemats, sprinkles, and a ketchup bottle filled with icing.  Yum!

Once the cookies were made, I set out the plate and the kids got to work.

Noah was most excited about adding hershey kisses to his.

Madie took her time adding the icing and leaned more towards the sprinkles and mini chips to the Hershey kisses.

Livie didn't discriminate.  She added EVERYTHING to hers!

Yep.  If Santa doesn't lapse into a diabetic coma after eating hers, I'll be surprised!  They had a lot of fun decorating their cookies and we now have a whole plateful to eat ourselves as well as a plate ready for Santa.  Only 2 days away!

Countdown to Christmas....3

Today we surprised the kids again by taking them to see "The Hobbit"!  I picked up Madie from dance class and asked her if she was ready to go somewhere.  She said, "Yeah?"  So, while we were driving home, Pete got the other 2 kids ready without telling them where we were going and they got loaded up as soon as we pulled in.  We started driving and the questions started flying.  They finally figured it out about halfway there.  As you can see from the VERY happy faces above, they all LOVED the movie!  It was fantastic!  Peter Jackson did a great job really connecting it to the LOTR trilogy.  Makes me excited that he split the book into three parts.  Gives us two more movies to look forward to!  Yet another fun day with the kiddos.  Now, I've got to come up with something fun for tomorrow!

Countdown to Christmas - 4...

Winter Break has begun!!!  The parties are over and we are just days away from Christmas.  To try and make these last few days really special ones with our kids, we decided to surprise them with a fun family activity each night until Christmas.  About 5:30 tonight I told the kids to get on their pjs.  They were quick to do that, because they love to hang out in their pjs all day.  Nothing aroused their suspicions.  Then I told them to get on some socks.  OK?  A little odd, but again nothing that made them wonder if something was up.  Then, while I was cutting up strawberries and popping some popcorn, I told them to get blankets.  Blankets?  Now the wondering began.  "What's going on?"  "Are we going to watch a movie?"  "Why do we need blankets?"  Their minds started racing as they tried to figure out why I was making all these weird requests.  Then I told them to put on their shoes.  SHOES?!  Now they definitely knew something was up!  

I handed them their bowls of strawberries and a fork.  I grabbed their waters and their bags of popcorn and told them to head out to the van.  As you can see, they had NO idea what was going on!

Once we got in the van (Tater too!), they started eating their snacks and I told them we were headed to go see Christmas lights!  They were very excited as we set out on our adventure.  We went around our town to look at lights.  We headed over to the neighboring town and drove around and then headed for a light display that I was sure would grab their attention in yet another town.

This one is a special one!  One so grand and exciting that people line the streets in their cars to see it.  They collected monetary and non-perishable food donations as you watch/pass by for the local food pantry.  In the 5 yrs they've done this they've raised over $32,000 for the Food Pantry and donated over 10,000 lbs of food!  Very cool!   We drove up and saw this amazing display.  The kids were in awe.  They have their own radio station set up with Christmas music that they lights correspond with. 

We stopped and watched for quite a while.  Santa was at the house here, so we pulled up and dropped off our canned goods and got candy canes from Santa, then pulled over across the street to watch.

The kids were all snuggled up with their candy canes, watching the great light show!

We stayed there, before driving through that neighborhood to and then headed back towards home.  All in all we stayed out for over 2 hours, drove through 3 towns, saw tons of light displays - like the one above that was absolutely beautiful! - and sang lots of carols while we drove.  It was a super-fun night and only our first day towards our countdown to Christmas.  Just four days left before Christmas and three fun days of activities ahead - and all of it is going to be a surprise for the kids!  Can't wait to do more!

Greek Goddess

For Madie's history class this year, they have been focusing on a different group of people every few weeks.  So far she's done the Egyptians, the Israelites, and now the Greeks.  They have to do special projects for each.  You may remember when they did the embalming ceremony and dressed up like a god for their Egyptian project.  For the Israelite project, she made the 10 Commandments, and for this series on the Greeks, she dressed up like a Grecian woman and played Medusa in a play.  We made her a toga out of an old sheet and added a design at the bottom.  Then we braided her hair like they did in Greece back then and added ribbons.  I think she looks adorable!  What a great way to learn about history!

Thief!

While we were gone at Madie's last game tonight, Tater was a little mischievous.  Let me share the tale, shall I?  Pete and I went out for lunch today and then did a little last minute shopping.  We got stuff for the kids' teachers, something for the boys I babysit, and then decided to go get something for our furry children.  We got Olive a feather toy and got Tater a big ball and a Kong stick thingy.  I stuck them under the tree, unwrapped, so we could give them to them on Christmas morning.  Tater suspected something was up, because (despite the fact that I put his WAY under the tree) he could smell something when we got home.  When we got home tonight, Noah said, "Hey.  Did you give Tater his Christmas toy?".  I told him no, but guess what we found by the front door?  His toy!  I guess while we were gone, he decided to get it out from under the tree and play with it!  Pete asked if I took the tag off, because it was no where to be found....

As soon as we walked into our bedroom, though, we found the evidence!  A chewed up tag all over our floor.  So, he not only stole it out from under the tree while we were gone, but he chewed the tag off, so he could play with it!

Look at that guilty face!  Such a stinker!  As soon as he realized he was caught, he gave us this sorry face and as soon as he was forgiven, was quick to jump and want to play with his brand, new, early Christmas present.  Gotta love this boy! 

Church Christmas Program

Today was our very first Christmas Program for our ZONE kids and it was fantastic!  We started practicing right before Thanksgiving to learn our songs and make our props for those songs.  It's been several weeks of practice and it paid off, because they were adorable!

Today was actually a really busy day in addition to their program.  We had our "Pick-a-Gift" event, where people in the church donate items for the kids to pick through for FREE, so they can give their moms, dads, brothers, and sisters, something for Christmas.  We've done this for about 3 yrs now and they always look forward to it!  There was also a wedding directly after service and a reception in our fellowship hall, so we set up in our SS room and it worked out perfectly having it there this year.

We all met upstairs in the sanctuary for a run-through during our SS hour, so we could be prepared for our performances.  I had to take a picture of my 3 kiddos with the animals they made for our first song "O Happy Day". 

And, of course, no Christmas picture would be complete without taking one by the Christmas tree and Advent candle, right?  Can you believe I actually got a "normal" smile out of Noah?!

During our practice time, I sat on the floor and directed them about when to hold up their figures (for the first song).  They did a great job staying pretty much on cue!  You can see all the parents were there taking pictures too. :-)

During the last song, they did hand motions/sign language.  They did a beautiful job with this.  During that song, Madie sang a small solo and 2 other friends of ours sang a duet.  More about that later.

I put this picture in there, so you could see how it wasn't just ME directing this, I had lots of shepherds helping me.  Seriously, without their help this whole thing would've been a disaster right from the beginning.  They were there each week helping with practices and making their props.  They were invaluable!!  Thanks, Debbie, Diane, and Julie ... Pete too!

Directly after their practice, we had the Pick-a-Gift thing.  I sent down all the Pre-1st graders and kept the 2nd-6th graders with me.  Debbie bought all the kids a book about the nativity taken from the Action Bible.  You can see they all loved it!

Once service was getting ready to start, we got them all on the pew with their first props - the animals they colored on their sticks.

They all got lined up and got ready to work their magic!

During the second song, which was a fast gospel song, they sang using sock puppets that they had made.  It was really cute!

I think Noah and his buddy Nick were a little embarrassed to sing with sock puppets, but they indulged us. ;-)

I mean, who can resist 16 christmas-clad, adorable kids singing with sock puppets?! 

During the last song, I told you that Madie, Tobias, and Jenna sang special duets/solos.  They did an amazing job and I heard so many good things about them.  Heck, I had so many people coming up after church THRILLED with the performances by ALL the kids today.  It was fun, cute, and really special.  I even got a hug from Jim Davey!  So proud of all of them and the awesome job they did!  Such a fun day!