Sunday, December 25, 2011

Merry Christmas!

All of the preparations, the decorations, the baking, the icing, the wish lists, all of them come to a climax right here.

It was difficult to contain the excitement Christmas weekend. We were thrilled the kids could buckle down to write a note and prepare a light snack for Jolly Old Saint Nick.




Angelic looking, right?



Michael is certainly putting forth some effort with regard to that, as a member of the church's children's choir. This shows Michael paying attention to his choir director and even singing a bit. Just moments before, though, he had the biggest scowl I had ever seen on his face.



Finally, a true smile from the brothers. These guys were pretty proud of themselves. This was their last and final effort for a treat for Santa. A gingerbread house. Santa got to eat parts of the roof. Jason, Michael and Joshua tried to eat the rest.



It's a much better showing compared to their last try.



The gingerbread Christmas tree didn't turn out quite the way it was supposed to. A bit of a difference from what the tree on the box looked like. They were not deterred, though. They just ate it up to hide the evidence of a misshapen snack.



By the way, Santa Bear made his first appearance this Christmas. You may have heard of the Elf on the Shelf. The Elf didn't come by, but one day, Santa Bear did. He left our house every evening to report back to Santa on the boys' behavior and came back right afterward, to hang out in a different location by day. Every morning, the kids would wake up and look to see where the Bear was hanging out.

If he had gone to a birthday party Joshua attended, he would have seen our youngest chasing after the birthday girl. He and Kinley were inseparable.



It was really difficult breaking him away from Kinley when she was opening her presents.



The holiday season was filled not only with parties and gatherings, but a little bit of work. Michael created several projects, some for his enjoyment...



others were games for him and his brothers to play.



The brothers even went bowling one evening with Jason's class from school.



Joshua took part in a holiday play for his school. He did a great job.



And, one evening, the entire family went with me while I emceed a night-time holiday parade.



Joshua was enjoying the view in front of the city's Christmas tree. But, turned around, it does look like he's doing something else, doesn't it?





The evening was great, the parade was fun, and the decorations were charming. One highlight for Michael was the food. There, they had cheesecake on a stick and boy, did Michael like that.




The boys and Doug also did a bit of volunteer work for the church.



They helped sell Christmas trees, although I'm not sure how much the boys were able to contribute.



Merry, Merry Christmas!

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