Month of Christmas!

 Whew-wee!  What a month.  December is always busy, and this one was probably one of the busiest but funnest we've had.  Both boys had events with school, then of course there's church stuff, family stuff, trying to hit all the fun local things, baking, building snowmen, gifts for everyone and, oh, you know, a little renovation project to begin.  Didn't want to miss a thing!

Beck had a fantastic Christmas program at his preschool and looked so so cute in his poncho and hat.  He sang and danced away and we were so proud of him and how well he performed (so was he).  Asher had a special Christmas 'dinner' lunch at school.  All the kids dressed up and sat at special candlelit tables in the classroom, done up with tablecloths and place cards.  A few parent helpers, (myself included) came in to help serve the kids all the fun foods.  Asher had a great time, looked handsome all dressed up and even had a little speaking part in a mini-program they did in class. Beck came along with me and sat at his own table at the back, eating up the fun foods.
Also, because Asher's birthday is always during Christmas break, he brought in some doughnuts for his class and was pretty excited about that, as was I since I didn't need to come up with any fancy cupcakes instead (love to do them, but timing would've been tough!).

Ash was also able to be a part of a presentation and recognition program put on by Ms Warrick, his awesome Kindergarten teacher from a couple of years back. She has taken on a special project for years to collect baby food for the local storehouse for needy babies in the area.  This particular event had news teams present for a special slide show, songs by the kids ("Together We Can Change the World") and donations of toys for Christmas for the storehouse as well.  It was awesome!  She brought together kids from her past classes for the whole thing.  Ash was happy to be a part of it, as were several of his buddies from that class.  Those boys are all getting so big already, sheesh.

We did get a little snow and whipped up a mandatory snowman one day while Ash was at school.  We thought the bean tree pieces were a nice touch for some crazy hair!  One afternoon right before Christmas, the boys and I made up some gingerbread too and had fun decorating and eating them. We did leave a few for Santa though.  And it was a family/group effort to construct our Gingerbread house...it was a box set one and we had a crazy hard time getting those walls to stay up, ahhh!  In the end, all was well and it stayed put and the boys were very proud of their little home.

In early December, I decided it was time to be sure that our little flooring project actually happened, so I thought that destroying the really outdated and ugly entryway tile might be the way to get things going. Since it was a spur of the moment decision to start doing it and I couldn't find the legitimate protective eyewear, I borrowed Beck's toy kids construction goggles and made it work, hehe.  Me and the mallet were exhausted and sore by the time I was finished, but also triumphant!  Now the new flooring has to happen, and soon! Yay!  (Note to self...removing tile is harder than it looks.)  In Corey's defense, he did want to help do it, but I was too impatient to wait for things to get rolling.

Christmas Eve was here in no time!  We had a fun and mellow Christmas Eve with our boys, they opened up their jammies, we read the Christmas Nativity Story, Corey opened up the special garden tile made by Beck, we drank cocoa and set out all the goods for Santa (egg nog, and gingerbread cookies) and his reindeer (carrots of course!) and were off to sleep!

 Christmas morning was magical.  The first bit of magic started out with a note from Santa in response to the sweet message Asher had left him on his chalkboard before he went to sleep.  The pic isn't the best, but it was just so cute that I had to post it.  The boys excitedly ransacked their stockings and gifts, while Cor and I took a few minutes to catch it all with cameras, then sat back and enjoyed.  I especially love what the boys gave each other.  Asher painted up a special little treasure box for Beckett (Ash received one last year from Beck and has wanted one of his own ever since; he was so thrilled), and Beckett painted Asher a little wooden lizard.  It was a wonderful Christmas morning.  That evening, everyone (Corey's parents were in town also!) came to our house for dinner.  The boys were happy to top off their special day with some fun cousin time and some chocolate cream cake.  

What a wonderful Christmas season!  It always goes too fast, but I sure do love my little family and all the fun times we get to share.