I feel like December started and is now almost over in an amazingly short amount of time. As soon as we got back from Thanksgiving things went crazy fast. Elijah's school jumped into holiday prep. They discussed Hanukkah, Christmas in different nations, and of course, Christmas here. I think some of the concepts were lost on the kids, but I am glad they were discussed. Elijah did come home a few times and talked about Pere Noel and a pinata. ANYWAY, we started the month out with our Christmas tree. Since the kids and I were actually home (instead of in the mountains for a few weeks) this year we actually got to pick a "good" tree as opposed to the last ones on the lot. So we picked a nice fluffy one and brought it home.
Grace and Elijah decorated almost the whole tree. I put the lights on and Jerry made sure all the hooks were attached to the ornaments. It was a very sweet tree and did it's job well. It did dry out by the end and is at this moment living outside our house until we sat farewell for good. But more on Christmas morning later.
So Elijah's teacher sent home a letter requesting candies
for decorating gingerbread houses. I guess I was under the impression that each class would make a "class" house... but not so much. They each got their own house. Elijah went all out in decorating his. I thought it was very cute. He has it in his mind that once her eats all the candy off the house, he will get to eat the house itself... well, okay... but we are just now getting to the end of the the decorations and really... the house looks a little stale. I'm trying desperately to find some way to get rid of the house without having to deal with a tantrum. I have to wonder, though if I just let him have a bite, he may, on his won decides that it's just not good anymore... and then maybe we can just make some cookies...heh. In the mountains,
one of the highlights has been going to the parade. There are bands and floats, and
of course, Santa. But the thing that seals the deal is the insane amount of candy that is collected... I mean it's like Halloween all over again! So with the bribery of candy, we bundled up (it was SOOOOOOO cold) and went to the parade (which, by the way, started at 5:00...really??) So, as you can see we were VERY bundled up. They had their little candy bags, which at the end of 45 minutes and 56 floats (most of which were not reallllly floats, so much as cars with people in them), had five pieces of candy. It was SOOO not worth it. The wind was so bitter. And Santa was barely visible at the end of the parade. Oh well, the kids had fun. I will say the highlight was the Boys and Girls Club Dance and Drum Corp. They were INCREDIBLE!!! We were going to attempt a different parade the following weekend, but it was pouring down rain. Alas. Next year, we will know. I took the pic for our Christmas card this year. We usually hit the beach for our pictures, but this year it was too cold too early!!! So, while I had good intentions of raking the leaves and taking pictures of the kids playing in them…it did not happen this way. So I dug through the craft supplies and I came up with some white batting, some silver cloth, and some unused Christmas lights. I had the kiddos lie down on the this and I stood on a chair and took pictures from above. Of the 87 I took, 27 were cute enough to consider. Here are the top two! We used the first one, but I love the second one so much. It really is their personalities personified!
One evening, Jerry comes into the bedroom and interrupted my reading for me to come out into the living room. I followed, and found this:
Apparently, she got up, came into the living room and since no one was in there, curled up on the couch, covered herself up and went back to sleep. She does this sometimes. I think she actually sleep walks. Sometimes she’ll start crying because (I speculate) she wakes up and doesn’t know where she is… or how she got there. Occasionally, she will wake up in the bathroom. We have found her in the kitchen asleep on the floor as well. If we ever move into a two story house, I will really be worried. But this is pretty darn cute.
We went to the library one evening for a family fun night. They have these occasionally. Each one is centered around a theme. This one had the theme of party!! SO we took the kids. As we arrived they had a craft set up to decorate your own party hat.
Grace wore hers for a bit, but Elijah just wanted to decorate it. He was not at all interested in putting his creation on his head. Heh. Go figure. Anyway…after we made our hats, we waited for everyone to arrive. They had quilts on the floor and chairs as well. Elijah and Grace sat with us in the chairs. The reader (from the group I used to work for actually!) came in and read stories that had to do with parties and cake. He had wrapped all the books up and unwrapped each one before reading it. Some of the kids were rather obnoxious an, I felt, crowding. 
I am always annoyed by parents that don’t control their kids…but whatever. Elijah and Grace both loved the stories. This reader has a TON of energy. After reading we did the Library Dance Party dance (bet you didn’t know there was such a thing…but there is…hehehehe.) The kids were far more interested in watching the reader dance than dance themselves, but it was tons of fun. After the stories and dancing, the kids got to make a noise maker. This consisted of taking a plastic bottle and putting rice and beans in it to make the noise. Then they painted a glue and water mixture on it and put tissue paper over it to make it all colorful and stuff. This is a neat craft (though I dislike using food that can be eaten for things like crafts) and they were smart to wait until the end to make them! On the way out the kids got to decorate a cupcake to take with them. Again, smart to wait until the end…and on the way out! My only complaint, this happened at 5:30…so before dinner… But ya know. Every once and a while is not a big deal. The next one if about fairy tales and the kids get to build a castle out of boxes. We are looking forward to going again!As mentioned earlier, December was REALLY cold. Colder than normal for here anyway. One day it rained (that cold, nasty, gross rain) and then that night is all froze. Elijah needed a day at home. I don’t think he was sick per se, but just needed a break from school. He seemed to MAYBE be coming down with som
ething and I wanted to cut it off b
efore it started. So Jerry took the car to work, and we stayed home! Since I am a firm believer of getting outside regardless of temperature, out we went. Elijah and Grace were both in awe that everything that had water on it was frozen. So, we went on an ice hunt. We started in our back yard. We found ice in buckets left out. We observed the shapes that each frozen thing was. There were leaves frozen inside some of the ice.
The biggest piece we found was in the ladybug . There was some water under the ice, but we got it out. Elijah took it upon himself to break the ice up and Grace took it up on herself to taste all of it… sigh.
So after we found all the ice in the back yard, we ventured outside of the yard. Of course, one needs accoutrement for such an expedition! Grace was armed with a wagon, which she abandoned about
the time we got to the actual road. Elijah chose a grocery cart and held onto it until we got back from our hunt. Our first stop was a neighbors drainage ditch. We stopped to talk about how we NEVER walked on ice we didn’t know wasn’t frozen solid. We also talked about the air bubbles that were trapped under the ice. We broke a piece off and off we went to search for more. We searched our usual puddle jumping places, but they all dried up. So we hit another ditch and by 
this time both Elijah and Grace were cold and ready to head back home. When we got back to the ba
ck yard, we unloaded the goodies onto the picnic table. After having some fun sliding the ice across the table, Elijah decided to build an ice house. Which Grace “helped” with. I thought they did a pretty good job as the pieces were all different shapes. After he was satisfied with his building,
he decided that there was even more to be done with the ice. He started by throwing it against the swing set, but the ice was simply too thick to be destroyed. So he moved on to playing with it on the slide. He tried many ways to get it to go faster, but in the end decided that just standing and dropping was the most fun.
Of course, after playing with super cold ice, the best thing to do is come in and have some hot chocolate (or rather chocolate milk that has been heated slightly) with marshmallows and watch a little Sesame Street. All in all a day that was needed with rest, fun, and family.
So with that last story, I will end this insanely long post. I will do our Christmas activities and Christmas Day post later. I’m sure the next post will be just as long! ;)
