A Charlie Brown Christmas Tune

Christmas time is here

Happiness and cheer
Fun for all that children call
Their favorite time of the year





Snowflakes in the air
Carols everywhere
Olden times and ancient rhymes
Of love and dreams to share





Sleigh bells in the air
Beauty everywhere
Yuletide by the fireside
And joyful memories there





Christmas time is here
We'll be drawing near
Oh, that we could always see
Such spirit through the year
Oh, that we could always see
Such spirit through the year...

'Twas The Night Before Christmas

And the boys were itching to open a few Christmas presents. They each ripped into two packages to find their Christmas
pajamas and the blankets I had made for them.







After the presents were opened and everyone was dressed I tried....TRIED to get a cute picture of the boys together. Needless to say they were not cooperative subjects but memories were made, pictures were taken and, after hot chocolate by the
fireplace, everyone was tucked into bed.

Gingerbread Again

Except this time it's real gingerbread, not paper
and we made a tree, not a man.



Isn't that smile too cute for words?!?!

Camden and I mixed up green and white frosting, stacked the gingerbread stars and decorated our little edible tree. It turned out cute, not exactly tasty but how yummy can stale prepackaged gingerbread pieces be? If you asked Camden he thinks eating it was just as much fun as decorating it.

Little Drummer Boy

This is more reminiscent of Stomp rather than the
"rum-pa-pum-pum" of the Little Drummer Boy.



I think we have a little percussionist on our hands.
And no, that is not a "okay" for anyone to buy him a drum set.

Holiday Show Off

Camden completed the fall session of his gymnastics class. In honor of the season's final class they invited the parents into the gym to take pictures and video. Camden showed us all his moves,
tricks, flips and cartwheels.



The little guy is strong, flexible, fast and has a good sense of balance.













Towards the end of class a special visitor came to wish all the kids a "Merry Christmas!" Camden specifically asked for a race track that sticks to the wall. Which, having conferred with Santa, he isn't getting. Although I'm sure he'll be just as excited to get a normal
race track that runs on the floor.





After waiting patiently on the sidelines, or should I say being held by Brian on the sidelines, Deegan got in on the gymnastics action by jumping into the foam pit. Once he dove in he didn't want to get out. Maybe we have a second little gymnast on our hands?

Pompom Christmas Ornaments

I had this vision of having the boys make homemade ornaments for gifts for those special teachers and our neighbors. My first thought was to have the boys swirl paint around ball shaped plastic ornaments but after a tester before I let the boys loose I decided this
wasn't the way to go.



It was messy, didn't look like I wanted them to and took a long time to dry. Plan B? I dumped out a bag of red, white and green fuzzy pompoms and had the boys stuff them into the ornaments.



This, as it turned out, was perfect. Both of the boys were able to easily fill the ornaments, they look super cute and no drying time was involved. After finishing them off with red and green ribbon
they are ready to be gifted.

Nativity Scene

After a lot of coloring, cutting and the application of glue and tape our nativity scene is complete
.


I used a template I found online; printed the stable and backdrop out in color (to save on coloring-I've very well aware of Camden's coloring attention span) and the figures out in black and white. Camden and I spent two afternoons coloring and a third afternoon putting it all together. Deegan even got in on the craft by coloring baby Jesus.

What Is It About Dirt?

I think dirt must have tiny magnets in it that attract clean little boys.





I cannot take Camden and Deegan outside with them needing a bath afterwards. During the summer this wasn't such a big deal because I could just spray them down with the water hose but now that it's "winter" they have to be stripped down before walking through the house to take a bath.

Bucket-O-Rice

When dumping the pictures off of my camera I came across these and can't believe I never posted them. I took them close to a month ago on a warm afternoon when we dumped out the rice bucket on a table cloth in the backyard. I gave the boys spoons, cups, bowls and trays for them to play with. They spent close to an hour digging,
pouring, and souping the rice.