Charlie's Christmas Cookie

12-16

Charlie chose peppermint sandwich cookies to make with me. It's a favorite recipe of mine but it's a little more involved than I was hoping for with the kids. We tackled it and he did great! We first made the cookies and then the peppermint filling. The recipe calls for a chocolate glaze on top but we left it off. They're just as good without the glaze! Well done, Charlie Boy!

Christmas Chalk Art

12-16

Because when you live in Canon City, drawing chalk in December usually happens. :) Molly and I had fun creating some Christmas décor with a new box of chalk!! 

Puzzle Night

12-11

We had puzzle night one night by the fire. We had not done puzzles for quite a while! It was so fun! The best part was that I got to see which puzzles were missing pieces. We ended up throwing away a few and donating a few others that had all the pieces but whose pieces didn't stay together very well. I have been in a clean-out mood for a while now. It's good to clean out to make room for a few new Christmas things! Bonus: it can be fun doing it. :) 

 Hattie can do this ocean puzzle all by herself now! 

Gingerbread Houses

12-10

We always make gingerbread houses together sometime during the Christmas season, and it's one of the kids' favorite activities. This year, we used the actual gingerbread kits that you buy in the store - which I did last year at 90% off at Walgreens and put in the Christmas boxes to use for this year. The gingerbread was probably a little more stale than it should have been, but we didn't eat any of it anyway. We just needed something to hold the candy! :) The houses were easy to put together with the frosting packs that were included in the kit. The kits also included some candy but most of the candy we used was leftover Halloween candy. After school that day, I had the kids go through their pumpkin buckets and unwrap several pieces so they would be ready to go. I think the kids enjoyed that part as much as decorating the gingerbread houses! Matt helped Hattie with hers a bit. I helped Molly pipe on some frosting and she did the rest. Charlie and Alanna did theirs almost completely by themselves. There may have been some candy eating as well... :) 

 Candy-filled mouths! 

We usually let the kids eat the candy off the gingerbread houses, and one time a few weeks later, Charlie was chewing a piece when he shouted "EMERGENCY!" He then promptly proceeded to spit out a filling that was pulled out from a sticky piece of candy. DANG. I guess the laffy taffy (or whatever he was eating) was just too sticky for his filling. The filling broke into two pieces, both of which he spit out. Charlie's tooth didn't hurt or anything but I did make a dentist appointment for his for a few days later. He actually didn't get the filling replaced because the permanent tooth is right behind the tooth that had the filling. The filling-less tooth isn't loose at all though, so it might be a while before it comes out. 

Molly's Christmas Cookies

12-7

Molly chose to make peanut butter Ritz crackers dipped in almond bark and chocolate. We saw some on Pinterest that had little Christmas trees on them so we copied that idea. Molly was SO CUTE while she was spreading the peanut butter on the Ritz crackers. One of them kinda got away from her and there was a whole bunch of peanut butter on the outside of the cracker sandwich. She looked at it for a second and then just went ahead and licked off the extra peanut butter around the outside before setting it on the wax paper with the others. Oh my word I laughed and laughed! Obviously we weren't planning to bring these cookies anywhere or share them with anyone. Not now, anyway! :/ 

Molly spread peanut butter and then helped dip them in almond bark and chocolate. Because they harden so quickly, by the time they were all dipped, I heated up the candy melts so we could pipe on the Christmas trees. We did green for the trees, a little brown for the trunk, and red ornaments on the Christmas trees. Molly had fun piping on the candy melts! Actually, she was pleased as punch doing all of the steps. It was a really sweet time with her! 

 She was pretty focused on the job!

 The best part was sampling some of the goodies along the way... good work, Molly Girl!

Craft Kits

12-3

Alanna received several arts and craft kits for her birthday last month and we are still chipping away at completing them. This week's happened to be soap making. It was actually pretty fun. I helped her microwave the clear soap and she made 6-8 different colored soaps. Alanna LOVES projects. It's fun! Also exhausting. 

 What usually follows: "Mom, can I watch?!" 

Decorating the Christmas Trees

12-2

This year, I decided to let each of the kids pick their favorite Christmas cookie and then bake the cookie with that child. At the end of it all, we would have four different kinds of Christmas cookies made by each of the four kiddos. It actually worked out fairly well! I started off with Alanna and she chose peppermint fudge. We melted chocolate, crushed candy canes, melted more chocolate and ended up with a pretty layered fudge. I had never made that recipe before but it was a good one and I would do it again. 

 After church, a YoungLives' baby's first birthday party, and the peppermint fudge, we decorated our Christmas trees. Matt tried something new this year, too; he put the tree stands on the trees before he even hauled them in the house. I think it worked out really well! He measured a few times, cut the trees down, and brought them in all ready to go. Matt strung the lights on the trees as well. He did white lights in the living room tree and red/green/white lights on the sun room tree. It was an excellent mix! I dug out ornaments and the kids put them on about as fast as I was handing them out. Matt got out the stool so at least a few ornaments made it higher than 2 1/2 feet off the ground. :) We actually ended up leaving all of the ornaments where the kids placed them. Yep, some branches had eight ornaments on them! (When I un-decorated the tree, I saw that one of the heavier ornaments was hung literally on the trunk of the tree. Clearly whomever hung that ornament took my suggestion seriously - I must have said that ornament needed a solid branch!) 

 I think this is my baby ornament! 

 The kids each got a Christmas tree in their bedrooms, too. Hattie and Charlie decorated theirs while Alanna and Molly decorated the one in their bedroom. Charlie and Hattie's tree ended up with several army guys hidden in the tree along with the ornaments and lights. I don't know. Boys! 

 All Christmas season Molly used the term "glow up" for lights. "Mom, I made my Christmas tree glow up this morning!" "Mom, did you see the neighbor's Christmas lights glow up?" :)