25 Days of Christmas-Gingerbread House Decorating

We have been celebrating the 25 Days of Christmas with an activity everyday.  One day last week was decorating a gingerbread house.  It was fun and we laughed a lot!

 They each had a side they could decorate.  My job was to hold the whole thing together.

 Obviously I didn't do such a great job! 

After several crashes we finally got it to stand! 

 It is not the most beautiful house ever built, but it was built with love.

Funny story:  Grace accidentally dropped a candy on the ground.  I said she could just eat it (yes, apparently I encourage my children to eat food off the floor!).  She then started purposely dropping candy on the ground and would say, "Oh!  Thant's okay!  I will just eat it, huh?!?!"  Finally I told her to stop dropping them and just eat it!

Tiny Dancer

Grace had her first dance recital last week.  She was very funny. 

She was easily distracted by seeing daddy, the lights, and something on the floor.  Also she spent the last few moments of her dance being a puppy! 

The top pictures were after the recital when they were saying thank yous and handing out gifts.  All the other girls were sitting nicely and politely...Grace not so much.  I tried to get a nice picture of her after, but that is almost impossible! 

Grace is such a silly goof-ball, but she looked so cute!  We were so proud of her doing so well on her first recital!

Holiday Parade

Our town has an annual Holiday Parade.  We bundled up super warm and drove to downtown.  It was actually not as cold as I was anticipating, but at least we were not cold! 

It was a fun parade.  Lots of lights and bands playing Christmas music.  Grace spent a lot of the parade with her hands on her ears, not because it was loud, but because she thought it was going to be loud.  Hannah was dancing all over the place.  Clara was waving though her puffy snowclothes.

It was a fun night and helped us get in the Holiday spirit.

The Last Bits of Fall

The weather has been so crazy here in Virginia.  It will be 70 degrees one day and 40 the next.  It is not really feeling like winter or Christmas here yet.  One day a few weeks ago, when it actually felt like fall, Chad and the girls raked up the leaves of our tree outside.  The girls loved to play in the pile, even though it was small.  Clara and I stayed inside where it was warm, but she liked to watch them out the window.

Yet Another Clara Video..Her 1st Steps

If the video won't work, click here.

Clara is definitely my slowest walker.  She still isn't fully walking, although she is getting more brave every day!  We are thinking that we will be completely walking by Christmas!

When Daddy is Away...

...the girls will play! 

The weekend after Thanksgiving Chad was able to go with a group from our stake to help the victims of Sandy in New Jersey.  You can read more about his adventure here.

The girls and I decided that we would have our own adventures here at home.  Please note that since Chad took the camera with him to New Jersey, all of the following pictures were taken with my phone.  Please excuse the poor quality! :)

 Decorating the house for Christmas and dressing up in the snowman kit gear!

 Going on a walk/bike ride to DQ to use our coupons for free ice cream.

 Spa morning which included a bubble bath, a delicious snack and smoothie, professional hair styling, and pedicure and manicures while listening to Christmas music.

Mini golf and dinner at Applebee's (Hannah's choice)!  I think Grace was a little disappointed that mini golf did not have anything to do with Minnie Mouse, but we all had fun!  I don't have many pictures of Clara, but she was along for the ride with everything.  She is just so good natured and never fusses, just watches and enjoys what is going on around her!

It was a fun weekend.  We missed having Chad with us, but Hannah decided that he wouldn't have liked the spa day anyways!  I love my girls!

She's a Nut

If the video doesn't work click here

Just Hannah

Very rarely do I ever get to spend time with just one of my girls.  With Hannah being in school, our chance for one on one time is very limited.  So I was very excited when two opportunities came up for something that I could go with her and leave the younger girls home.

A small college in a nearby town had a science day.  They had all sorts of cool experiments and classes.  I didn't get very many pictures, but we were able to see marshmallows expand in a vacuum chamber, a glowing pickle, newts, and fire that danced to the beat of music.

They even had a class about static electricity.  Hannah volunteered and was able to touch a ball that made her hair stand up.  Her hair didn't go up too high, but the girl that came up after her (whose hair was pretty static-y to begin with) had her hair sticking straight up everywhere!

Hannah's favorite part was the dry-ice ice cream.  My favorite part was spending time with Hannah!

The second chance I got was going with Hannah on her field trip to the Science Museum at Eastern Mennonite University.  It was a very small museum, but the kids had lots of fun.

Getting Bowled Over

We went bowling as a family.  It was really fun!  Hannah was getting really good.  Chad beat us all, but some of his points included shots made by using the bumpers, but I won't mention that! Haha!  Grace ran over the foul line once and slipped and fell twice.  She didn't make that mistake again!  Clara just crawled around and kept trying to crawl out to the pins.  It was a little crazy, but a lot of fun.  I love when we get to do things all together!