Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!!

Mommy and Daddy really wanted to have Christmas at our house this year. But along with having Christmas at our house, comes cooking for everyone that comes as well. We had the four of us, Khun Yai and Khun Tha, Grandma and Grandpa, Auntie Alyson, Uncle Jeff, Uncle Jim, Kianna your buddy, Xander, Bryce, Ryan, Bridget and Nichole over. As usual, Mommy was bound and determined to exceed the expectations of our guests with a delicious dinner at a beautiful table.

Looks like both you and Vaughan were on the "REALLY NICE" list.

Here's the Princess Kitchen you were dying to have.

3 Generations.

25 Days of Christmas - Day 24

Activity of the Day: Open 1 Present.

Decisions, Decisions. Since Santa hasn't visited our house yet. There were only a couple of presents to open under the tree from friends from afar. The choice was between Mike's or the Katsoufis' gift. The winner was the Katsoufis gift which was a 100 piece buildable deluxe marble race. Remind me to get them back next year with 101 pieces that makes lots of noise as a bonus feature.

Once we finished opening the gift, we decided to lighten Santa's caloric intake by eating a couple of his cookies for him.

Cookies for Santa.....

Food for the Reindeers

And a little reminder of what was on your Christmas list. Hope you were on the "Nice" list.

25 Days of Christmas - Day 23

Activity of the Day: Make Christmas Cookies.

Unfortunately, there is no picture for today's activity. We made some treats for our upcoming grand dinner. Bummer.

25 Days of Christmas - Day 22

Activity of the Day: Gingerbread Houses

Decorate with some gum drops.

Decorate with some icing

and your house is complete.

25 Days of Christmas - Day 21

Activity of the Day: Drive your truck around the block looking at the Christmas Lights


After driving around the different subdivisons in the neighborhood, you thought that it would be nice for you to drive Vaughan around in your truck while Mommy, Daddy and Bentley walked to admire the Christmas decorations in the immediate area. Even though, this was not was originally planned, it was a nice treat.

25 Days of Christmas - Day 20

Activity of the Day: Donate to Charity

Christmas is not only about receiving presents but also about giving as well. Being that we are in a recession and the unemployment rate, according to the department of labor for the month of November was 10%, there are several less fortunate families out there. Together we sorted through some of the toys that you no longer play with and decided to donate them to the Metropolitan Ministries. Initially, you were not too keen on parting with your toys but once we arrived at the drop off sight, you were eager to help load up the cart with your donation.

After doing this activity, I thought about the years to come and how I think that it would be a good experience for all of us if we volunteered our time during the holidays in addition to donating items.

25 Days of Christmas - Day 19

Activity of the Day: Drive around and look at Christmas Lights

After dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's house we played some holiday music and went through all the subdivisions in the community to look at all the Christmas decorations. Even though, we are in a down economy, it's amazing how many people still get into the holiday spirit and do what makes them happy. Never let the small things get you down, enjoy what is most important - Your Family. I love you baby girl.

25 Days of Christmas - Day 18

Activity of the Day: Charlie Brown Christmas.

Today's activity was suppose to be watch Symphony in lights at the Wiregrass mall, but we decided to stay in and watch Charlie Brown Christmas instead. Its always a treat to make it a movie night complete with popcorn and pjs.

25 Days of Christmas - Day 17

Activity of the Day: Make Bentley and his buddies some Christmas Treats

You love to be in the kitchen. Must be from spending time with Yai in the kitchen because it's something that I don't do often. However, this holiday season, I decided to tackle the task. I looked up a simple healthy recipe for dog treats and I found this:

1.5 cups of whole wheat flour

1.5 cups of flour

1/2 cup of peanut butter
1 cup of water

2 tablespoons of oil.

Combine, roll the dough and cut them out in assorted shapes (we made dogs, and Santa hats) and put in the oven until hard. So simple and Bentley really enjoyed them.

25 Days of Christmas - Day 16

Activity of the Day: Make food for Santa's Reindeers

Start with some oatmeal

and then you thought that the reindeers would enjoy some smores so we added some chocolate chips, marshmellows and graham crackers.

As usual, Bentley was hoping for an accident to occur.

2009 - Class Christmas Party

First we started with "A Tooty Ta"

Then did a Christmas Craft. We made a foam Ginger Bread Style Picture Frame for your Christms Class Picture.

Then ate Lunch & decorated Ginger Bread Men.

25 Days of Christmas - Day 15

Activity of the Day: Make Christmas Ornanments

Super easy and really inexpensive. I went over to Target and for less than $3.00 I was able to get this foam kit that made 2 ornaments. Both you and Vaughan were able to work on this and they turned out super cute.

25 Days of Christmas - Day 14

Activity of the Day: Make Hand Wreaths

Easy as 123... Trace your hand and place in a circle. Looking at this, we should probably add a bow and some holly next time we do this. But the attention span was a little short today.

25 Days of Christmas - Day 13

Activity of the Day: Read a Christmas Book

This particular book I bought for you last year from a company that will personalize a book with your name in the story and information about you. As I read this story, you had a hard time understanding that this was a fictional book and insisted that you did not do any of the things that the book described. So what was suppose to be a simple story time ended up in a description and lesson between fact and fiction.

25 Days of Christmas - Day 12

Activity of the Day: ICE

Woke up this morning and had planned just to do the ICE exhibit at the Gaylord Palms and then head back home. However, Daddy and I decided, last minute, to stay one more day to relax and take it easy.

At 9 degrees, you didn't like the exhibit all that much. Actually I think that the only part that you were remotely interested in was the slide. So we hurried through that and headed over to Downtown Disney where we bought you and Ava light sabers. MUCH BETTER!!!

Playing with each other is fun....


But ganging up on Daddy is better.

25 Days of Christmas - Day 11

Activity of the Day: Disney's Very Merry Christmas

On our way out of the park, I happened to notice Pluto, Chip and Dale dancing inside. So we decided to join the party.

25 Days of Christmas - Day 10

Activity of the Day: Make Gingerbread Cookies

Look how cute the two of you are with your matching aprons standing on the chairs all ready to bake some Mickey Mouse Gingerbread cookies.

Add a little molasses

Press the cookie cutter into the dough

Bake for 12 minutes

Decorate

Voila

2009 Cookies
Mickey with a Mohawk is Daddy's, Chocolate Mickey is Mommy's,
Bottom left is Yours and Bottom right is Vaughan's

25 Days of Christmas - Day 9

Activity of the Day: Rawls Road Christmas




Since both of you took extremely long naps today, we called the Reynolds and went to see the lights at the houses located on Rawls Road which run with the Christmas music played on 87.5 FM. This was our first year to see the display and I was impressed with how much work the homeowners put into it.

25 Days of Christmas - Day 8

Activity of the Day: Watch Prep & Landing

The card that was pulled for the day was to watch Disney's Prep and Landing which was a 30 minute holiday show on ABC. But somehow, Prep and Landing turned into Aladdin. I had good intentions for 25 days of Christmas but we hit a minor bump. Oh well, there is always tomorrow.

25 Days of Christmas - Day 7

Activity of the Day: Christmas Craft - Foam Christmas Scene

Thank goodness for Michael's Arts and Crafts store. Since Mommy is not the most creative of people, I headed over to Michael's and found this cute little set that we built together. By the time it was all said and done, we were glistening with iridescent glitter. Fun but definitely messy.

25 Days of Christmas - Day 6

Activity of the Day: Wiregrass Mall to ride the train around the Christmas Trees and Decorations

25 Days of Christmas - Day 5

Activity of the Day: Christmas Craft

The actual activity was suppose to be pictures with Santa, but you were not having any part of that idea and I figured that Vaughan wasn't going to cooperate either. So to save myself the fustration in the middle of the mall, we decided to head over to the Reynold's for a Christmas craft and some dinner.

We made wreaths with tissue paper. The directions were to use the eraser end of a pencil, place it into the middle of the square of tissue paper and draw the sides of the paper up and use the covered eraser to dip into the glue and press onto the wreath. Well, you deemed that too much work and decided to take each piece of tissue paper, ball it up and dip it in the glue and place it on the wreath. I guess you decided that it would be more efficient and take less time to do the craft your way. Way to find the short cut.

25 Days of Christmas - Day 4

Activity of the Day: Christmas Movie and Slumber Party

It's always a special treat to be able to have a slumber party with Mommy and Daddy. Something that you LOVE to do. Tonight, we watched "Charlie Brown Christmas" and you crashed in our bed. Unfortunately, there is no picture for today. I tried to figure out how to use the timer on my camera so that I could be in a picture and after several minutes and attempts, Vaughan decided that he was too cranky for pictures.

25 Days of Christmas - Day 3

Activity of the Day: Decorate the Tree

25 Days of Christmas - Day 2

Activity of the Day: "Write and Mail out Christmas Cards"

2009 Family Christmas Cards

Writing your cards out to your friends