Christmas time was here...

I have been pretty lazy this break.  I am trying so hard to catch up so that I can blog  about 2014 in real time.  BUT, there is still much to share about our Christmas traditions.  This will catch me up to Christmas Eve.  

Abby had  Explorer's Day at school.  She was David Livingstone.  

She is missing her mustache here because we didn't want it to lose its stickiness before she did her presentation.  I never got a picture of it!

 Lauren had a choir concert at school.

 Isn't she beautiful. 

 Her favorite part was the tradition of taking the choir singer out to eat at Cheddars afterwards!!

Sam also had a choir concert

 He is on the far right, second row down.

 Laila had a Christmas party on her last day of school.

Here she is making a candy cane.

 Wearing her Christmas shirt

 Playing some Christmas Bingo

 I found out after taking this picture that I wasn't supposed to be taking pictures.  Oh, well, I got a few!!

While I was at Sam's concert, I was able to slip into Isaiah's class and get a couple of pics of his party and watch him make this marshmallow snowman.

 That is my kind of snowman, sugar,chocolate, and you don't have to bundle up to make it!!

 Abby whipped up these snowflakes one day and decorated her door with them

 I saw this craft on my friend, Melodie's blog.  I purchased the supplies and thought it would be a great activity for a day during Christmas break when the kids were bored.

We added a marshmallow star to the top.  You can see the actual project here.

 It was easy.  The kids were able to do it themselves and I bought the spiced gum drops so neither of them really wanted to eat them!

 Isaiah's creation

 Abby convinced Isaiah to let her redo his tree as a "rainbow tree"

I loved they way they looked on the shelf above our fireplace.

 As always, there was holiday baking to do.  Abby and I started it off with peppermint bark.

Crushing the candy canes

 Melting the chocolate

 Peppermint spread out

 White chocolate on top

 It turned out delightful!

 We did a night of Starbucks and looking at Christmas lights.  2 scrooges, who will not be named, chose to stay home.  We figured we would all enjoy ourselves more if there weren't people in the truck complaining and asking how soon before we were done.

 Our favorite is a drive-thru display that a local church does.

Candy Cane Lane

The Many Lights of Christmas 

 Holiday Train

 And of course, the manger.

 We also checked out some houses that had advertised special light displays.  It was fun!

Our church has the little kids wear jammies to the Christmas Eve service, so I dressed Isaiah and Laila up for church the Sunday before Christmas

 I love how these two love each other!

 Sam's Christmas baking was fudge

 This is his favorite part

 Can you tell the pan is heavy?

 Isaiah and I made truffles, my personal favorite

 Taste testing

 Laila helped me make sugar cookies this year for our annual Cookie Decorating Competition.

Here we are using a mix to make a gluten free version for Rick and Abby.

You may have noticed that there are no pictures of Cody and Lauren baking with me.  Cody "helped" me make Peppermint Snowball Cookies.  I say it that way because after crushing the peppermints, he was pretty much done.  Lauren is making several batches of chocolate chip cookies for her science fair project.  So, we decided to wait and bake together then.