Christmas Fun

We've had some fun in the last few days, soaking in the fact that I don't have to work and the girls don't have to go to school!

Santa paid a visit to Sydney's school last week.  Each kid in her class got to sit in his lap, but Taylor's class just got to see him.  Her teachers said that she cried when he came in.  Poor Taylor.  She does like to walk around and say, "Ho! Ho! Ho!  Merrrrrrry Christmas!" in a deep voice like that Santa did.

I was given an embarrassment of riches from my sweet students and fellow teachers at school.  I had enough candy/donuts/restaurant gift cards to feed an army.  Luckily, I also got some beautiful scarves to help hide the fact that I soon won't be able to button my pants... 

This particular gift's "to/from" made me chuckle.

On Saturday, the girls on my mom's side of the family met in the middle at Perimeter Mall to go to lunch at The Cheesecake Factory.  I took Sydney and Taylor a little early, just to walk around the mall.  This is the mall I grew up going to, so it definitely brought back a rush of memories.

After lunch, we attempted our 4th annual gingerbread house.  Taylor was way more interested in chewing the gumballs, but it was still fun.

We've been reading bible verses every night from the advent calendar I made.  I was so proud of Sydney, and wanted to give a proud-mommy shout-out.  She read this entire verse, minus needing help on the words "thing" and "Mary"- all by herself!!

Crafts, crafts, and more crafts... the smartest thing I've done in a while is convert our rarely-used dining room table into a craft table.  I bought a thick table cloth to cover it and the girls can sit there and color, paint, glue... anything. Well, most anything.  Let's not go crazy.

Today, the kids were getting a little stir-crazy from being inside from all this rain.  Stephen had to work.  I braved it, and took all 3 kiddos to the bowling alley.  We ended up just playing the arcade games, but I think the girls probably enjoyed that more than they would have enjoyed bowling.

Our elf on the shelf has been around, too.  The girls wake up so early just to run downstairs to find him! (I'm talking, 5:30!!)  I don't have the creativity, nor the energy or, honestly, the desire to have him do funny things, so I haven't been taking pictures.  But, no need to worry... he is with us and has been reporting back to Santa.  Most reports have been good, minus a few days here and there.

So excited for Christmas!