Christmas!

We had a great Christmas! The Kids enjoyed acting out the nativity scene on Christmas Eve as Dad read from the Bible. This year we had Mary, Joseph, a wise woman, and an angel.
Liz and Sammie both got some fake fingernails and play makeup for Christmas. They both had to try on the fake nails, but decided they weren't much fun to wear for very long. I'm hoping they will loose interest in the make up soon too.
They've all enjoyed the play dough that Grandma Hughes gave them. The puzzles turned out to be a little more on Mom's level. But I've sure enjoyed them!
This is Caleb's big gift for the year. One of the down sides of shopping on-line is that you don't always get all the details. This track is huge. We had to build a table for it in the mudroom. But he loves it, so I guess it's all good!
Hope you all had a great Christmas too!!! Sorry I didn't send cards this year. I've got to start thinking about Christmas cards before December hits I guess.

Gingerbread Houses

This is a family tradition that I grew up with. Every year we made gingerbread houses. My mom always made the gingerbread from scratch and the whole family would decorate them. Then they would be put on display for a month before we were allowed to eat them if we still wanted to. While I've mostly continued this tradition with my kids, this is the first year that I made my own gingerbread. That wasn't as easy as I expected, but it turned out good. And because I waited to make them until a week before Christmas they weren't even very dusty by the time the kids were allowed to eat them.
This is the kids just getting started. I would've liked to have Stewart and I make them too, but I didn't have enough molasses to make that much gingerbread.

Each of the kids posed with their finished pieces before going to bed while I put the houses together.




Here's the finished product. Left to right are Caleb's, Liz's, Josh's, and Sammie's.

Thankfully my mom's icing recipe really gets hard because even though the gingerbread was hard when they were decorating, with all the humidity here it actually softened a lot in the week that they were on display.

Sammie turns 4!

Sammie was very excited for her birthday this year. We counted down to her birthday first and then when that was done we started the Christmas count down. She was determined that she wasn't actually 4 years old until the day after though. She got two main birthday presents from us this year. One was a "fridge DJ" which is a big magnet radio that sings counting and ABC songs. She loves it! The other is a preschool wii game. She loves that she has her very own wii game and is starting to figure it out.

I also let her pick what cake I should make. She chose this lion. I thought it turned out really cute.

This Picture is just one of those extra's I like to throw in. It's the view out our kitchen window on Sammie's b-day. I love the mix of snow and forest. In Chevak, Snow was snow with nothing to break it up, so I'm really enjoying the variety.

Santa's pre-Christmas visit

We had our school Christmas program on Friday last week and then a Branch Christmas party on Saturday. The kids were part of a short play for each one and Santa came to both. We didn't get pictures at the Church party, but I wanted to share the ones from the school program. We had some ladies from the community that put in a lot of volunteer hours to create a beautiful set for the kids program and it made a great backdrop for some pictures. My kids hadn't seen santa for a while. The last time they saw him was when Sammie was just a couple days old. So this was very exciting for them. (At least the younger two that still believe.) The older two were excited because this wasn't your average mall Santa that poses for a picture and hands you a candy cane. The city had provided nice gifts for santa to give every child there from newborn clear through our two high school students.

Caleb with Santa

Liz's first ever smiling picture with Santa.

Josh could tell this wasn't the REAL santa because his brown mustache was showing a little under the white one. But he didn't care too much because he knows that the real santa is very busy right now.

Sammie loved seeing santa. And when Josh suggested that he wasn't the real one she got very defensive on Santa's behalf.

We were over due for a new family picture, so we took advantage of the scenery. And thanks to Ron (the kids archery coach) everybody even smiled.

This is Sammie and Blaine. They are my two preschoolers. Their part in the program was to hold up signs saying "the end" and look cute. I think they did a great job!

I threw this picture in just because it's so cute!!