Merry Christmas!

Let's Get Ready

Madeleine got to introduce her kindergarten winter performance today.

Gingerbread

The girls love to do gingerbread houses and have been asking for weeks when they could make them.  For the past three years at day care they've made graham cracker ones, so we've just done a kit together at home.  This year they wanted their own kits though.

Back in my single days, my mom bought me a kit once "for fun."  Following the instructions drove me nuts.  The icing was runny and I pretty much had no luck gluing the thing together with the icing.  As soon as I'd get a side up, the next side would fall over.  It was pretty pathetic.

So the attitude I've taken with the kits is that they're fun to make, pretty to look at, but probably taste pretty awful and stale after sitting out for weeks on end.  I'd much rather make fresh gingerbread with the girls than have them eat the kit mess.  We usually just throw it of the deck 25 feet in the air and watch it smash into the back yard.  That said, I glue the gingerbread pieces together with hot glue before we even get started.  That way all the frosting can be used on the decoration and not trying to hold the thing together.

 Lily was set on eating hers from the beginning.  Of course she reminded me, "Mom, you know you're not supposed to use hot glue on these."

 Madeleine wanted to "snow" her roof, and was more into creating a pattern with the candy.

Lily was determined to eat something and licked a lot of the super-sticky frosting.

This year we learned we probably need some supplemental candy as well.

Holiday crazy

It seems like 2 weeks before Christmas is always the busiest holiday activity weekend around.  We kicked it off Thursday with Disney on Ice followed by City Ballet's The Nutcracker on Saturday morning.  I'm not ready to commit us to the full price Carolina Ballet production just yet.  The girls' favorite part is always Mother Ginger and the kids that run out from underneath her skirt.

We got a live tree this year and decorated it Sunday morning.  It's the biggest one ever, so we pretty much used almost everything in the box - even both Wonder Womans (but only one of the two Chewbaccas).

We finished up the holiday festivites Sunday by attending TMOTT's Cookies with Santa event.  The girls both asked only for American Girl dolls and were very excited to have one of Santa's helpers make them a balloon animal.

WFRG News

Since the girls started kindergarten this year, we've wanted them to be excited and proud of their school.  One of the things they talk about a lot is the morning news program, WFRG.  Older students read the morning news each day.  I'm assuming it's on television sets in the classrooms.

Here's Madeleine's take on the daily news.

All of it was written out beforehand on her clipboard phonetically.

Then and Now - Christmas edition

We went to the Town of Cary's Santa's Workshop at the community center on Saturday.  The girls love the crafts and the dancing.  Getting to see Santa outside of the mall is a bonus.

Here's Madeleine last year:

 And this year:

A few inches taller - but not too much.