Christmas

In the interest of trying to finish out the year of blogging, I'm wrapping it up with some pre- and post-Christmas photos.  The children enjoyed a day of crafting prior to Christmas.  I hardly ever get arts and crafts worked into our homeschool schedule, so sometimes its fun to just take some time to do nothing but crafts.  They had gathered pine cones from a park on the Marine Base last week and turned them into Christmas trees.  Jacob was allowed to use the hot glue gun for the first time, and he did pretty well with it.  But after getting hot glue on his fingers about ten times, he decided the excitement had worn off and he wanted me to finish gluing his "ornaments" on his tree.

They also beaded pipe cleaners to make ornaments for our tree, and Katie Mei put together a foam Nativity scene.  She does quite well with craft projects on her own, so I let her have more leeway than I ever could the other two at the age of three.  She often asks me if she can use glue and scissors and I can tell her "yes" without having to provide too much supervision.  However, I did notice today when I was upstairs in our classroom that all four glue sticks were empty and had been put back in their proper place instead of in the trash can.  Wonder when she used all that glue?  Hmmmm.

On Christmas Eve the children watched the Muppets version of A Christmas Carol.  Merrilee remembered the story from seeing another version of it last year.  But Jacob and Katie Mei hadn't seen it before, so they were a little more tense in some of the "ghost" scenes, even if it was done with puppets.

Christmas morning brought its usual fun and excitement, and Jacob was the first one up this year.  He's usually our sleepy head, but not on Christmas morning!

The kids got their annual nutcrackers.  I was so happy to have found some less common ones this year.  Two were snowmen, and for Merrilee I found a baker.  I hope the kids love their nutcracker collections when they're grown ups.

The top item on Katie Mei's Christmas list was a suitcase.  I ordered a fun purple "Trunki" case for her, which is actually made to be ridden like a pull toy, for ease in getting through an airport.  I don't know if we'll ever get that far with it, but she seemed to like it.  The day after Christmas she innocently informed me that she had seen the "purple suitcase" in my closet a long time ago.  So much for my private hiding place for gifts!

Jacob didn't ask for a guitar, but he was very excited to get one. He has been longing for one since Merrilee got one almost three years ago, but he's not very good with his toys (or other people's, for that matter) so we were unwilling to buy him a guitar in the past.  This year I decided he might be okay with one. 

Well, within 40 minutes he broke one string and removed a second.  The day after Christmas he filled his guitar with bathwater; I tried to stay calm and meticulously dried it out, reminding him of what a nice guitar it was and how he'd have to treat it well.  And yesterday I found it in his closet stuffed full of wet Sunday school papers and loose silica gel beads that he apparently found in the guitar box and dumped in there.  Needless to say, his guitar ownership has been postponed.  Maybe he can have it again when he's 37.

He also got a fun Spiderman watch.  He was quite excited about the watch, and so far it's still intact!

Merrilee had been wanting some kind of a crystal kit for almost a year, so I found one that lets her "mine" crystals from a block of plaster.  She was head-over-heels excited about her gift!  The day after Christmas she sat down and did some mining and actually got her first amethyst from the block.

I didn't want Katie Mei to be the only one without a guitar, since she's our real musical child (believe it or not, this quiet one really does spend a lot of time singing despite her lack of stage presence at church musicals!).  She was happy to get her guitar, too, and so far hasn't abused it.  Although she did leave it on the steps once and had it taken away temporarily.  We had no idea guitars were such high-maintenance gifts!

Merrilee had also asked for a pogo stick; she said she just wanted to try it. I warned her it was pretty hard (Lord knows I couldn't manage to stay on one when I was her age!).  Well, she proved me wrong as usual.  That child is just built for athleticism!

The cats mildly enjoyed the morning.  Cinders found the Shiatsu foot massager more than thrilling, and we couldn't turn it on without her getting in on the action!

Dusty was nowhere to be found, and Linus made his point clear that Christmas is way overrated.  It's either that, or he just can't hold his catnip very well.

The older children helped with Christmas dinner, preparing the olive and cream cheese-celery stick tray.  The day after Christmas, Katie Mei and Merrilee made pizzas.  Love having them old enough to help in the kitchen now and again!

Our family hopes you had a lovely Christmas and wishes you a blessed New Year.