Gingerbread Time

This year, thanks to Wal-mart and discounted prices, each of our kidos got to decorate their own gingerbread houses. They are being watched over by our horseshoe snowman...thanks Terri!

We have Jayla's residence on the far left, Jake's (with a little help from mom) in the middle and Kenny's on the far right. It took Kendra the longest being as she personalized it with her initials and an initial of a young man that shall remain nameless at this time...cough, cough, Jory, cough! But you didn't hear it from me :o) You might be careful about teasing her about it too, she is a little sensitive on the subject, as her dad discovered the other day. I came to her defense though and threatened dad that if he wasn't nice than I would have to dig out an old love letter that he wrote while we were dating and let her read it. For some reason Brad backed off in a real hurry, I wonder why???

We did the annual Christmas project in each of the kid's classes again this year. Though, the project I decided on for Kendra's class got a little on the pricey side. It gets harder and harder trying to come up with projects that are not lame for that age group. This year we mixed up spice tea and put them in jars we decorated. I made the kids follow their own recipe and I wanted to make sure they used their brains a little bit so I failed to supply them with the right sizes of measuring cups, instead they had to add fractions together to get the right size. Some were very upset with me. Overall though they all had a very good time and I even heard a few comments about how cool they were. Thank God for my understanding husband who knows and accepts the fact that I sometimes tend to go overboard on things like that and he is OK with it.

In Jayla and Jake's room we made shaving cream snowmen. The kindergarten class was neater about it than the 3rd and 4th graders were. Jayla's class took full advantage of the "you can use your hands" philosophy. I also had bookmarks for Jayla's class to decorate, which is what they are doing in the picture above. Not a very big class, which is good because otherwise I don't think we could do these types of projects. Jake's class was a lot of fun because they are still excited to do new things. I first asked them what they thought the snowmen were made out of and everyone said whip cream, so I than had them all smell it and asked again. This time I heard things like soap, frosting and cotton balls. When I asked them if any of them had ever watched their dad or grandpa shave and if they remembered what they had used when they did that one little boy said yea. He than went on to bashfully tell us all that moms had shaving cream too, because he has seen it in his mom's shower. This young man, along with the rest of the little ones around the table than began giggling uncontrollably for about 5 minutes. Oh the things 5 year-olds find funny ;o)

I'll leave you all with this final picture, which just seems to scream MERRY CHRISTMAS!! Or at the very least it leaves you with a lasting impression.