Christmas Parties!

We had two days of Christmas Parties!
Lily's was on Monday.
They had all of the preschoolers together for their party.
That's a lot of 3, 4, and 5 year olds!
All of the kids had Santa hats and bells.
They sang some songs and rang their bells.
It was really cute.

There were five songs total.
Lily lasted through two and then she came over to me and told me she was done.
I was surprised she stayed up there that long! =)

Then we got to eat some yummy food.

Santa got mobbed by a bunch of preschoolers when he came!!

Lily got this cute caterpillar from Santa!

She was very excited.

Lily had a great time at her first school party!

Today, the boys had their parties.

I am Riley's Room Mother, so I had to be in there for most of the time.

Lily and Riley helped each other with their manger scene craft.

After the art project, I popped over to Zach's class.

He was having fun playing games and eating yummy snacks!!

Then I went right back to Riley's class.

They were eating the yummy food parents brought.

Lily liked having two parties to go to!

Earlier in the day, each class got to go see Santa and have their picture taken with him.

Here are the pictures we got:

The boys had a great time at their parties too.

Now all three kids are off school until January 4th!!

Christmas Crafts

On Monday last week, Camden came over to play with Lily.
Since he doesn't always get to come over for craft day, we decided to squeeze in a craft with our playing.
We made Christmas trees!
I let them put glue dots all over their trees.
Lily likes to say, "Just a dot, not a lot!"
It is pretty cute to hear her say that over and over. =)
Then they added glitter to their glue.

They had a lot of fun with that.
They were surprisingly careful with the glitter too.
Then we added foam sticky candy canes and stars.


I think they had fun making their trees.

Then on Friday, we had our regular craft day.

Johnny couldn't come, but Camden's big brothers did!

Cooper & Carson were out of school for Christmas break already, so they got to come over too!

The first craft we made was gingerbread men.

We used foil tissue paper, glitter glue, and puff balls.
I like how each one is different!
Good job kids!!

By this time, Camden had lost interested in craft day and went off in search of trains.

But the other three got ready to make wreaths!

We used cut paper, glitter glue, & puff balls.

They did a great job!

Thanks Cooper, Carson, and Camden for coming over to do crafts with Lily!!

Elf Yourself!

If you click on Elf Yourself below:

Elf Yourself

you can see our family elf video.

(sponsered by Office Max)

You can also make one of your own!

**If you tried this earlier, it works now

Christmas Concert

This was the program from the boys' Christmas Concert last night.
The Art teacher had different classes make torn paper snowmen to glue onto the front.
They were SO cute!

The boys were super excited about their concert.
We dropped them off at the school and then headed over to the church were the concert was.
Zach happened to be sitting right in front of us!

The kindergartners sat on the floor in front of the pews, so I had to go over to where he was to get a picture.

He got to come back and sit with us after his songs were done.

I can't figure out why they didn't want those 5 & 6 year olds sitting up there by themselves for over an hour.....

Riley's first song was Away in a Manger.

They even had actions!

It was too cute!

They also sang We Wish You a Merry Christmas!

I think this picture describes Riley very well.

Cute, but a tad goofy. ;-)

The real thing is much cuter than the pictures.

They were all so excited to be singing!


When it was the second graders turn, Zach was all smiles!

The second graders sang Frosty the Snowman with solos and actions.

Their second song was Christmas Jubilation. It was very cute too!

I wish I had taken a picture of both Zach & Riley together, but it just didn't happen.

Oh well... =)

They both did a super job!!


*** and on a somewhat related note, Zach's class did the mass this morning at school. He read the second half of the first reading (it was a loooong reading). He did a GREAT job!! We were so proud of him up there!! =)

Riley Has Discovered......

Post-It Notes!

While I was cooking dinner last night, Riley took it upon himself to write and color on post-it notes........

a lot of post-its.....

I found these all over doors and walls in the house last night.

Some of them are pictures of Christmas things.

But some of them say To Dad From Riley.

I asked Riley why they said this.

He told me it was to remind Jeff that there was a present under the tree to him from Riley. =)

There is also a picture of the fireplace.

In case Jeff forgets that the tree is next to the fireplace....

Ahh, Riley. You are such a crack-up. =)

Decorating The Tree

Sunday night we decorated our tree that we have in the family room.
This tree is decorated with ornaments that are mine from my childhood, and ones that we have collected since we have been married.
We also have added ornaments that the kids received when they had their first Christmas and ones that they have received or made over the years.
In addition to all of those, each year, the kids get to pick out a new ornament.

In last few years, Zach has begun to help Jeff put the tree up.
It is so fun to watch them work together on this project. =)

Lily got to add the angel to the tree this year!
(with daddy's help of course)

The kids like to add their new ornaments to the tree first.

Zach picked out a shiny red present as his ornament.

Lily had been eyeing this cute penguin for weeks.

I am SO glad they had one left when we went to get ornaments!!

Riley picked out an ornament that had a cute scene from the movie Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

It is so fun to watch them get excited over their ornaments.

They have baby ones, ones with their names on them, handmade ones, cars, care bears, footballs, and anything else you can imagine.

It makes our tree unique to us as a family.

And I love that.

Christmas Lights & Santa

Saturday night, we headed out with our hot chocolate to look at Christmas lights.
It is one of the things we do every year with the kids.

We started out at our favorite place; The Lights on St. Paul.
You drive through and look at all of the pretty lights while listening to music.
The kids love this place!

Then we went inside the building and saw Santa!!!
Lily was super excited about seeing him.

Riley is such a hugger. =)

While the kids were eating their candy canes from Santa, we headed to see more lights.

This house's lights were set to music you could listen to on your radio. It was really cool

This house was bright!

It was crazy how many lights were here on this one house.

The kids thought it was cool.

It will definitely be on our list to see again next year. =)

We had a lot of fun looking at lights again this year!!