December 5, 2012
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Christmas with Kids
I remember my first Christmas without my family. Being from a family of 13, there is joy, exuberance, and general chaos on Christmas morning. I know, the Grinch would have freaked out at all the noise, NOISE, NOISE!!! But that was what Christmas meant to me. So it is understandable that my first Christmas morning as a newlywed, waking up alone in a quiet house, was quite a shock. It was sooo quiet!! SOOOO lonely! Last Christmas was our first one with all three children. Oh what fun!! There was noise again; joy, delight. It truly felt like Christmas. This year, I suspect will be even more fun.
In preparation for the ‘best Christmas ever’ I decided to gear the Christmas decor towards the kids. We’ve typically done a very monochramatic, silver blue and snow white tree. Not very cool, if you’re a kid! So this year, I pulled out all the stops and built a Candy Land themed Christmas tree. Complete with a gumdrop garland, lollipops, peppermints, and candy canes. What a cool idea!! I did not, however, consider that my children would deem these ‘ornaments’ edible. (they are in fact home-made entirely of styrofoam and glitter paint) I also did not consider that the glitter would procreate and find it’s way into every corner of my home-including, but not limited to, our food. (so much for eating organic! I’m trying not to think about the toxic chemicals that might be involved in glitter paint…or the hyperactive effects of Red Dye #40…in fact, that explains a lot about the children’s behaviour lately!) Still, despite the harmful effects of ingesting styrofoam and glitter paint, I think the kids have really enjoyed the Candy Land tree. And it’s so much fun to see all of the glittering colors on our tree. But after this is over, if I never see glitter paint again, it will be too soon! So I snapped a few pictures before every ornament is ‘eaten’ off of the tree
The Tree
A closeup of the gumdrop garland, lollipops, etc
See how nicely these wrapped gifts look under the tree? Nearly all of them have been opened to some degree since I snapped this photo. How did I not realize that this would happen?!! But instead of spending my time re-wrapping them, I am sitting here blogging about it.
The Candy Land Centerpiece on our dining table…the camera does not do justice to all the sparkly glitter
I also did not recognize the danger in putting real cranberries all over my house. They look just like grapes, but are surprisingly more bitter. I keep finding these chewed up and spit out all over my floor (Miriam strikes again! The boys are old enough to know better!)
The candy canes on this tree are genuine food products…as such, they have been disappearing at a steady rate
I taught Caleb to ride his bike this Spring. This consisted of my steadying the bike, giving him a push, and he was off and riding – that was that! He’s been riding extremely well ever since. This was his first bike accident, which as you can see, he is very proud of!
Miriam is a little young for a purse and shoe fetish! Nevertheless, she is ver opinionated about her accesories. She doesn’t consider herself properly dressed until she has a bow, shoes, and handbag. In this case, she chose the lunchbox.
This is the best Christmas photo we got of the kids. A very typical Jackson expression! It makes me laugh
Our 2012 family Christmas photo
Merry Christmas to all of y’all!!
