Our Christmas Get Away

We stayed at the Water Park Hotel and had tons of fun swimming and on the slides!    

Wouldn't you know it! The first person we ran into at the Water Park was Santa! The kids couldn't believe that Santa actually was at the Water Park! He asked Shane what he wanted for Christmas and Shane said, "I already told you!"  So Santa asked him if he changed his mind! Nice come back Santa!

Alexa was in her glory because she was tall enough to go down the slides by herself.  She went on the tube slide over and over again.  She also was a brave girl and went on the body slide! She loved all of them.  She is a little fish with no fear!

The kids coming down one of the smaller slides!

You never knew how Shane and Emma would come down those slides.  Here is Emma spinning around! 

And Shane making his feet first appearance on his tummy!

Here are Eric and Emma coming down the double tube slide.  We all loved this one but loved the big family tube ride too.  It was nice to all be able to go in the same tube together.  We also enjoyed the lazy river and warming up in the hot tub.

The hotel was a hit with the kids and mom and dad.  To our surprise there

 was a separate room with 2 sets of bunk beds. Shane thought it was so fun that he got to 

sleep on the top bunk as well.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from our house to yours!

From the fullness of His grace we have all received one blessing after another

John 1:16

On Friday I spent the afternoon helping at the girl's school with their Christmas parties.  I started out in Alexa's classroom.  

They had fun making "Happy Birthday Jesus" cupcakes.  They used the items below to explain the Christmas story using a cupcake!  

Happy Birthday Jesus Cup-Cake Instruction:

Round cup-cake represents Gods everlasting love no beginning or end.  

The chocolate cake represents sin and the white frosting that represents Jesus’ purity covers the sin.

White colored sparkles to represent Jesus’ goodness and beauty.  

Green sprinkles represent everlasting life.

The gold star represents star of Bethlehem

The angel represents the angel Gabriel who talked to Mary/Joseph and the Shepherds about the child who was to be born and who was to be Jesus) 

Put a candle in the middle.  When the candles are lit they represent the light Jesus brings us through the whole year through

They also designed their own ornament and then wrote about why they drew what they drew.  Alexa drew an artist because she loves art and wants to be an artist someday!

They had green bags of goo and they used q-tips to write in the goo.  They had to come up with as many words as they could in the word Christmas.  The winning group came up with 26.  How many can you come up with?

We finished the party off with a unwrapping the present relay.  I was in charge of the game so Eric had the joy of helping me wrap 24 boxes.  3 sets of 8 that fit in each other.  Alexa and I made little clips for their backpacks with their name in beads and a heart on it.  We talked about how we all love opening gifts but that we want to remember that Jesus and the gift of Jesus is the most important.  We also talked about the only thing Jesus wants for Christmas is our heart.  The key chains are a reminder that Jesus wants our hearts.  

It got a little crazy but the kids had a blast with the relay and hopefully they took something meaningful away from it as well.

Alexa's teacher game them 3 special gifts.  One was some candy because they are sweet.  The second was a glitter pen to encourage their creativity.  The third was a musical note ornament to remind them of all the praise and worship time and music they did in 1st grade.  Alexa's teacher loves music and Alexa loves that they spend so much time singing and praising God.  What a great way to start each school day!  I know Alexa will always remember Mrs. Odens and all the singing they do in the classroom!

I got to sneak in at the end of Emma's party.  I missed the cupcake decorating and cupcake eating station.

They had fun decorating Christmas bags for the crafts they made!

They also made frames for a picture of Emma and her teachers. Emma loves her teacher so I know she will treasure this picture in the years to come.

Very proud of her finished product.

Emma was very excited to open her gift from her teachers.  She got her very own little tree.  This will be a fun reminder of her Kindergarten year each Christmas season when we take it out!

The girl's Christmas break started on Friday.  Shane is supposed to go to preschool on Monday since his preschool follows the public school schedule.  I am not going to be able to capture any pictures of Shane's Christmas party this year because we decided to take off for a family Christmas get away as the kids Christmas present this year.  I can't wait to post pictures of our Christmas fun over the next couple days.  I think Shane will get over missing his Christmas party at preschool and enjoy our Christmas family fun!

Happy 1/2 Birthday Alexa

Alexa's 1/2 birthday falls on Sunday so Alexa celebrated her birthday on Thursday at school.  She saw these reindeer cookies in a magazine and wanted to make them for her birthday treat!

We mixed up our favorite sugar cookies.  We decided to keep the reindeer's light but they would have been cute with brown food coloring in the dough too.  We thought the eyes would show up better on the light dough.  

Sugar Cookies

1 cup powdered sugar

1 cup white sugar

1 cup butter

1 cup vegetable oil

Blend above thoroughly

then add:

 2 eggs

 1 tsp vanilla

 4 1/2 cups flour               

1 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp soda     

1 tsp salt

Flatten dough ball with glass dipped in sugar

Bake at 350 degree for 8-10 minutes of until lightly brown around the edges

Alexa flattened out the dough and placed the pretzels on for the antlers.  

She then carefully placed the chocolate chips in place for the eyes.  We then popped them in the oven.

When they came out she quickly pushed a red m&m on for the red nose.  

She was very happy with how they turned out.  She diligently decorated all 40 cookies.  

Alexa felt very special and had a great day.  She loved passing out cookies for treats but she also loved all the cards her classmates made for her.  They each decorated a card and wrote something special to her.  She paged through these numerous times and read them to me and her dad.  Some of the things that her classmates said about her were that she was sweet, she was nice, she was pretty, she was kind to everyone, she was a good friend, she was kind to others, she was a good seat buddy ...... She said, "I always wanted to get that compliment!" I said, "What compliment?" She said, "that I was a good seat buddy!" These cards took a little time out of her classmates day but they are definitely a treasure in Alexa's eyes!

My Fashion Queen

Emma has always been my fashion queen!  From the time she was little she took notice of what was in style.  She was into dresses and skirts for the longest time but now is all about jeans and layers.  When she was 3 she would come out of her room with her jeans rolled with big cuffs like one of her baby sitters.  It is like pulling teeth to get her to wear comfy clothes like sweat pants! She is the one who knows what she wants to wear when she wakes up in the morning and often comes out of her room fully dressed right after she wakes up.  Today I had to take a picture of what she came up with.  She has taken notice of the layered look and has a t-shirt with a dress over it! She off course has her jeans that have a hole in them and look a little worn.  She got her snow boots out and tucked her jeans into them.  She has noticed the tall boot look around.  She also added a scarf as a finishing touch! She wore this outfit around the house the whole entire day!  

Who knows maybe she will end up in the fashion world someday! 

Christmas Fun With Shane In The Kitchen

Everyone always asks if Shane misses his sisters when they are at school.  I would answer maybe a little but he LOVES his one on one time with mom.  I have to say I so am enjoying him right now.  He cracks me up and is so willing to be my helper whether it be crossing items off the list at the grocery store, vacuuming or dusting or helping in the kitchen.  This week he had fun helping make our favorite Peppermint Hot Cocoa for our family and for gifts for others.

 

He thought it was going to be fun to "punch" the candy canes! I called it smashing them!

He decided the elbow punch may work a little better! I wish I could have captured the sound effects that went with it.

Now comes the layering part! 

And of course the finished product! 

Here is our Peppermint Hot Cocoa Recipe

In a pint jar layer in this order:

1/2 c powdered creamer

1/3 c sugar with red food coloring

1/4 c hard peppermint candy discs, crushed

1/3 c powdered sugar

1/2 c chocolate drink mix (I've found Quick or Nestle or a more well know brand is better than any generic)

1/2 cup dry milk

* the jars above are a recipe and a half

Shane also had snack for preschool this week.  He really wanted to make more Christmas cookies to bring.  He is supposed to bring a health snack so we brainstormed some healthy ideas that he could have fun making.  This is what he decided.  

Crackers with cheese cut out in Christmas shapes! 

He loves bringing snack to preschool and especially when he helps to make something special! 

Christmas Cookie Decorating 101

My friend Julie and I have gotten together for the past 4 years with our kids to decorate cookies before Christmas.  It has become something our kids so look forward to.  I think the first couple years they would eat more than they decorated and after 2 they were done so we would decorate the rest.  

As you can see Jack and Shane are totally enjoying themselves!  

Shane is carefully completing his masterpiece! 

And then of course taste testing his final product! 

These girls were having so much fun.  They are actually in the same Kdg class at school so enjoy spending time together outside of the classroom as well! 

Emma busy completing her gingerbread man!

Shane the serious froster! Hmmm it looks like he has been taste testing!

Yum, Yum!!!

We missed Alexa this year since she is now in school all day everyday.  I promised her I would save some cookies for her to frost after school.  I am thinking we may need to switch our annual cookie decorating to an evening next year and then the dads can participate too!

Singing About Jesus' Birth

This weekend the kids had their Christmas program at church! It was really crazy not to have any one in the 2 and 3 year old choir! My 3 little blessings are growing up way too fast! Shane and Emma were in the 4 and 5 year old choir together.  Shane was very excited for the big performance on stage especially since papa and grammy were coming! 

Emma and Shane were singing Away In A Manger! 

Here they are ringing their bells! 

Emma singing her heart out in the microphone!

Shane was anticipating the microphone!

Alexa was pretty excited that she moved up to the big kids program this year.  She was assigned the part of the "know it all angel!"  I thought she looked pretty cute in her glasses but I also thought they made her look way too old! 

It was hard to get any decent pictures with the lighting and it seemed like every other picture had a glare from her glasses or red eye! I don't know if she every has had red eye in her life! 

She sang her heart out! She was very proud of her performance in the big kids program and so were we! 

Shane and Emma came on stage as animals for the last couple songs of Alexa's musical! Shane was supposed to be a donkey which is why he has the brown shirt on but decided he would like to be a sheep! He was a cute little sheep that was singing his heart out!

And there is our other sweet little sheep!

"Oh man mom, how do you girls do this?  This headband thing is killing me! Are we done yet?"

We were very proud of our 3! They did a great job! 

Shane's Dilemma

Shane was telling Eric tonight that they had DIWEMMA at preschool today.  The DIWEMMA was that the person who was supposed to be the line leader was not at school. 

Alexa said, "What is a Dilemma?" 

Shane replied, "It means we have a problem we need to solve!"

Alexa said, "Wow, I never knew that!"

Maybe there is something to learn from a little brother!