Meeting Santa!!!

The annual Christmas-themed story time is always great!  They bring in one of Santa's helpers and she always does a great job!  You'd think she works there every day!!!  ;)

Here she's about to bring out Jack, the dog who never remembers what animal sound he's supposed to make!



Jack will moo like a cow, cluck like a chicken, baa like a sheep...he never gets it right the first two times and Abilehi has to ask the children if that's the sound a dog makes:

The children always chorus "No!" and Abilehi has to whisper in Jack's ear to try to get him to make the right sound for the audience:

Finally Jack got it right and we got to move on to the actual story-telling portion:

Once the stories and poems were all done and we were about to do the goodbye song...there was a slight interruption...and Santa showed up out of nowhere!!!

No one minded our interruption, though.  Santa read the children "Frosty the Snowman" first:

Alegria had been asking and asking to see Santa and would get so excited when we told her she'd be meeting him...but she didn't show much enthusiasm today...maybe once it became reality, she got shy...but at least she didn't cry and gladly got up on Santa's lap, even though she didn't speak at all to tell him what she wanted for Christmas!  Haha!

Odette, on the other hand, was frightened by Santa and when we tried to get a picture of her on his lap, she cried...as I thought she would.  One of the other moms at story time offered to take a picture of all three of us with him, though, so that was nice:

They each got a little present from Santa and quickly went to sit down to open it:

And of course, we just HAD to get a picture with Santa's helper, too!!!  :)

Craft time!!!

And a little puzzle time!!!

Back home, Odette found Daddy's hat and paraded around with it:

How about we try on your Santa hats, too?

Odette likes to take out her ponytails...crazy hair happens!

At bath time, Alegria took her ponytails out, too...but at bath time that's expected!  More crazy hair!  Haha!!!  (In this picture she was showing me that the front part of her hair was wet...she was so excited that she'd put the front of her face into the water all by herself!)

A close-up of her busted lip...she got hurt yesterday playing with the other kids at our lunch at Andrea's.  It's healing up nicely.  :)

Wow.  Don't tell her...but wow.  Those eyebrows.  I'll have to tactfully teach her in the future how to pluck...my poor baby got my unruly eyebrows!  Thank heavens for tweezers!!!  :)

Sweet dreams everyone!!!  :)

Outside Lights

After preschool today (we had it on Monday this week as well to make up for a sick-day last week where we had to cancel preschool), we all went to Andrea's house for a lunch playdate.  It was wonderful, as always!  You never want to miss out on an invite from Andrea...she makes the yummiest food...and today was no exception...she went all out and it was scrumptious!!!

While we ate and visited in the living room, the children played.  Some were in Josh's room, and some stayed out in the living room with us...mostly the babies.  There were actually more ladies and their children than just us who do preschool.

Alegria kept coming back and forth...and at one point even went to sit on Sandy's lap!  Apparently, going to preschool has made Alegria become very comfortable with her teachers...so much so that she didn't even ask "Miss Sandy" if she could sit on her lap...she just made room for herself right next to Chloe!!!

I kept Odette with Abilehi and me on the couch in the living room.  The older children can get a little rough at play and I didn't want her to get hurt on accident, so I kept her occupied with treats.  She kept wanting to go play with the everyone else and was a little upset at the situation:





Alegria was hoarding Josh's Bevo stuffed animals and carried them around with her, then would grab another toy or two and just bring them out to the living room to play with:

Finally it was time to go home.  As soon as we got home and Odette was free to roam, of course, her first inclination was to go for the tree...she's very intrigued by it and I ended up having to place the coffee table in front of it so that she won't touch anything and mess up the ribbon that's around it!

I then remembered that I wanted to get a picture of Odette in her faux-fur vest and put it back on her...she's too stinkin' cute, especially with those little furry boots!!!

She got upset when I put the hood up, though:

It was time for Odette's nap anyway, so I took off her little vest and put her to bed. 

While Odette slept, Alegria and I went outside and put a few Christmas lights up.  It turned out that the string of multi-colored lights was half burnt out, so there were very little twinkling on our front tree.  Oh well...at least it's a little cheerier than nothing!!!  Alegria had been helping me at first, but it was bitterly cold today and she decided that it was too cold to be outside and opted to go inside into the warmth of the house to wait for me.  It didn't take too long for me to be done, thank goodness:

Once Odette woke up from her nap, we all played in Alegria's room:

Daddy got home and came to join us in Alegria's room, where Alegria asked him to draw a jungle and animals on her white board:

We finally got the girls to bed and I went to get a picture of the outside lights in the dark while Cameron took Isis for a walk:

When Cameron got back, he was freezing and since I was running the Auto Clean on the oven and it was very warm, he pretended it was a roaring fire and stood in front of it to warm up!  Hahaha!!!

And that was Monday.

Good night everyone!

Jazzing Up The Christmas Tree

When we got home from church, I decided to use some of the girls' cookie cutters that they got from their advent calendar.  Since they both like cheese quesadillas, I chose to do a whole new spin on them and cut the tortilla and the cheese into fun Christmas shapes before heating in the microwave:

YUM!!!

After lunch, Odette took a nap and as I was tidying up in Alegria's room, I found a cute Thanksgiving craft she'd made at preschool.  I'd been meaning to put it up in her room, but I still hadn't, so I took a picture of it and then hung it up...I know it's no longer Thanksgiving, but we should always be grateful and remember those things that we're thankful for, which in Alegria's case are:

Andrea Hawkins, who was her teacher on this particular week of preschool where she made this craft, told me that of all the children there, Alegria was actually the only one who when she was asked what she was grateful for, began saying things right away!  She didn't have to be prodded or given hints for things she was grateful for (except for Odette, I believe!  Lol!)  In the list of items, Alegria told Andrea "deer," which Andrea told me she was a little surprised about...so I explained to her how Cameron had shot a deer and that when he'd been cutting up the meat, he kept telling Alegria how grateful we are that he was able to hunt the deer and that it will provide meat for us for a long time this year.  So I thought it was neat that she remembered that and added that to her list!!!  :)

Abilehi came over for dinner and afterwards, as we were sitting in the living room and I was telling her how we still need to buy new ornaments for our tree, a lightbulb went off in my head and I got a great idea on how to decorate our tree! 

So I enlisted Abilehi's help:

I have a large container of crystal decor in various shapes and sizes and I happen to have clear plastic cording and tape...so with Abilehi's help, we taped loops of cord to the backs of a plethora of these little crystals...and with the help of both Alegria and Odette, we placed them all over the tree:

Alegria even tried decorated her baby elephant with a few:

Odette got bored (and destructive) and began running amok:

I also happen to have a lot of leftover red ribbon from a wreath I'd made for Cameron's homecoming and I decided that it would look great wrapped around the tree!!!

All finished, our tree looks so much better now!!!

And now with the living room lights off!!!

Close-ups, with lights off and then on:

Finally at the end of the night, before Alegria and Odette went to bed, we again did our advent calendar.  In the spots where tins had already been taken, I replaced them with some of the non-used laminated wrapping paper circles and some of the holly and berry decor that was left, too:

It was, as always, a wonderful day!  :)

Good night!