Making Christmas Goodies

I was very excited about Christmas this year!  I don't know why more this year than other years but I am super excited about the whole Christmas season not just the day.  Our Christmas shopping was done much earlier than usual which was so great!

Our 2012 Christmas Card

I have tried doing a few different crafts with the kids this year.  We made ornaments, chocolate pretzels, and a gingerbread house. I also let Vincent help with Christmas cards, which you may have noticed if you got a card with labels in odd locations on the envelope or if your address label was upside down,

The house not long before they decided to be finished.

We have been making some ornaments, although they have not all turned out the best.  We tried making paper ones using a blender and cookie cutters, they didn't turn out that great.  Then we tried making ornaments out of flour, salt, and water.  That went a lot better other than the fact that Joel thought it was cookie dough at first.  After he managed to try some he realized it was NOT cookie dough.  Joel and Vincent both had fun rolling out the dough and picking out which of the new Christmas cookie cutters they were going to use.

Building a gingerbread house.  They loved the icing!

Now we have a lot of ornaments around to decorate and get ready to give as gifts.  We have been filling some of our down time decorating the ornaments.  We have been using paint markers (love them) and glitter glue (also fabulous!).  I think the kids and Amy (our babysitter) finally finished decorating the ornaments today.  The kids don't seem to care that Christmas has passed and they are still decorating ornaments.  They have fun doing it and it keeps them busy.

The boys working on making ornaments

Joel, Vincent and I decorated a gingerbread house one night.  Joel was literally trying to eat the house as we went, but we convinced him to leave the house alone.  Instead he alternated between helping to decorate and eating frosting.  Vincent had fun decorating the gingerbread house too, but we has been wanting to eat it as well.  Now it is a couple weeks old and I may just throw it in the garbage.  I am not sure how long those things are good for, but yuck!

Vincent's handiwork

Our last Christmas project was making chocolate covered pretzels.  Joel loved to eat them and Vincent helped me make all of them.  Ok, I loved eating the pretzels too!  Maybe one of these activities will become a holiday tradition.