getting ready for Christmas

The month of December is so much fun for the kids!  Henry had 4 countdown calendars going, which were all completed by about 6:15am every morning.  I feel like he was up so early the entire month!  He was so pumped to see what their activity would be for the day in his Advent calendar.  I really did enjoy that he was able to actually celebrate Christmas this year at his Christian school.  I'm pretty sure every single lesson revolved around Christmas and Jesus' birthday for the whole month.  

The annual Santa parade is always a big hit.  The local firetrucks, police cars, etc are all covered in lights, the officers all walk alongside and collect food for the food shelf, and then there's Mr and Mrs Santa to finish off the night!  

Henry wrote out his letter and mailed it at Macy's when we went to visit Santa!  Here it is.....

Lydia had to write him a little letter too :)

We went through the Macy's 8th floor Christmas display before seeing Santa.  

Henry loves his pin that he gets from Santa every year, saving it in his nightstand at home :)

Henry asked for a Hotwheels volcano and Lydia asked for purple footie jammies.  

Henry and I had our annual cookie decorating date at the Blaine City Hall one night.  It's fantastic - each child gets a dozen sugar cookies, along with unlimited frosting and sprinkles.  He goes to town on the decorating, he doesn't want my help one bit, he makes a huge mess, there are sprinkles EVERYWHERE, and then we take our cookies and head home!  No mess for me to clean up!!

We did make a batch of Gingerbread cookies one morning.  The kids helped with everything from start to finish, so it was quite a lengthy process - 3 hours long!

Of course, no shortage of sprinkles here :)

Henry called his Gingerbread house "the fish house" this year and wanted to use Swedish Fish to decorate it.  He definitely has ice fishing on the brain!  He was too sweet for this project - I asked him if he wanted to do it all by himself when Lydia was napping or if he wanted to wait and do it together with her.  He chose to wait and do it with her because he knew that she would like all the candy and frosting!