Santa Claus

A few weeks ago I was buying presents for something at church where families in need can buy toys for their children for Christmas at a greatly reduced price. Abigail saw the toys and asked who I was buying them for. I told her "I'm buying them for kids who might not get presents for Christmas." She looked at me with the most serious look and said "But mom, I don't understand. Why can't Santa just bring them presents?" We felt it was time to have "the talk" with her (thankfully it's just the Santa talk at this point...the other talk is still a little way away...I hope). We told her about Santa not being real, but also threatened her from telling her brother or anyone else who believes in Santa.

Well...when we were in Chicago my sister-in-law, Kelly, wrote a note and left it on our windshield, in a parking garage. It said "Dear Abby, I know you don't believe in me anymore, but I've been watching you today and you've been a very good girl. Love, Santa" Now she's a bit confused since she has no idea who wrote it. She's still not believing really, but the note just doesn't make sense to her. So now her big question is if he is real or not. We went to see Santa on Monday night and while she didn't ask him that question, she really wanted to. Henry told her later, "You should have just pulled down his mustache, then you would have known!" Ah, Henry, the voice of reason.
Johanna all adorable and smiley PRIOR to going close to Santa. At this point, while waiting to see him, she is saying "Santa, Santa" and pointing to him all excited.
And THIS is how she felt about sitting so close to the jolly man in the red suit.

We didn't torture her too long. Daddy rescued her and then Henry and Abigail got down to business asking him for American Girl clothes (for Abby) and Playmobil and Sharkbite Bay (for Henry).

Henry's Gingerbread Day

Henry had Gingerbread Day at school on December 15th. He got to take an adult with him for the afternoon to do gingerbread crafts and activities and then build a gingerbread house. I was the lucky one who got to go with Henry and we had such a fun afternoon together.
First we used stickers to make this picture. Henry named them "Mr. Gingerbread Henry" and Mrs. Gingerbread Mommy. I think they look great, don't you?
Another activity was coloring a picture from Jan Brett's book Gingerbread Baby that Mrs. Zwart read to the class. Henry did an awesome job with this picture since he's such an artist!
The finished product...beautiful, isn't it? And I never tire of seeing him write his name.
Then we worked on a gingerbread house together. We did a pretty good job I think. We did use a couple of milk cartons for support, but overall this house stood pretty solid. I was in charge of the main construction and then Henry got to do most of the decorating.
He thought it was pretty cool to use the icing bag...a lot.
The artist by the finished masterpiece! He had so many cute details he wanted to put on it!

Annual Chicago Trip!

It was time for our annual girls trip to Chicago again! This year it was going to be my mom, Abigail, Rebecca, Luke and me. We decided that it was a little much for Johanna and that she'll be at a much better age next year to go along. The weather forecast for the weekend was terrible so we really weren't sure what to do. We looked into taking the Amtrak, but it was really expensive and we hate being without a car in the city. We thought about taking the Southshore Line for Michigan City, but decided that didn't really make sense either because we'd still drive in the weather to/from Michigan City and still be without a car in Chicago. SO...my mom made an executive decision and decided that we would just go down for Saturday and not stay over night since the bulk of the bad weather looked like it would be hitting Chicago on Sunday. Rebecca decided that it still looked yucky enough on Saturday that it wasn't worth going and having to drag Luke through freezing rain downtown Chicago so she opted to stay home this year. My mom, Abigail and I had a great time and despite some rain and cold temperatures the weather really wasn't all that bad.
The main reason for the trip was to go to the American Girl Store...like every year. Abigail was really looking forward to it this year. She definitely was at the best age she's been so far. She loved every minute of it and was getting into parts of the history as well. She chose to take along her doll, Rebecca for this trip.
Standing by one of the windows with Rebecca before going inside the store.
I told Abigail that she could go to the American Girl salon this time around and Rebecca could get her hair done. I partially wanted to do this so I could see how they do their hair since Abigail's dolls are all getting some crazy hair. The lady was really nice and Rebecca's hair turned out really cute. It was definitely a fun thing to do once!

After American Girl Place we headed to the Cheesecake Factory and met Joel, Kelly and Mila for lunch. It was fun to be able to catch up with them for a little bit. Abigail was loving her corn dogs that she got there.
Even though Johanna didn't go along, my mom still bought her a Bitty Baby. Johanna LOVES her baby and insists on carrying it almost everywhere and FOR SURE sleeping with it every night, wrapped up in a fluffy. It's definitely been a hit with Jos.
It's really fun to be able to have such a fun tradition in our family. Abigail's so easy to take places because she really enjoys all sorts of things and is genuinely thankful when she gets to do things. I look forward to taking Johanna along next year as well!

Abigail's School Program December 7

Abigail's Christmas program for school was on December 7th. It was a great program and she did an awesome job! She was really excited for the program because she loves to sing. She was really, really excited for the program because she had a special part that she auditioned for and got. :) She was a cheerleader. Her cheers went like this:
S-A-N-T-A
Snow won't keep
Santa away!
Hip, hip hooray!!

and

Santa Claus, Santa Claus
He's our man.
If he can't do it,
Nobody can!

She did a great job remembering her cheer and the motions. She had the support of Grandpa, Grandma, YoYo, Papa and Aunt Ali in addition to her family to help her along too. :)

Making Ornaments

I saw a video on youtube that showed how to make easy, cute glitter ornaments using Pledge floor cleaner, glass ball ornaments and glitter. I decided to try them with the older kids. We had so much fun making them. They are really easy (the biggest key is using A LOT of glitter) and they had a ton of fun making them unique in their own way.



A few of the finished ornaments. They look really sparkly and beautiful in person!
Then we moved on to making handprint snowmen. We used small canvases that I had painted blue and then painted the kids' hands white, pushed it on the canvas and then they decorated their fingerprints into little snowmen. This was fun because it's such a great keepsake to see how the kids decorate their snowmen and how much bigger their hands have become over the years.
Johanna wasn't quite sure what to think about all the paint on her hand, but she was a trooper!
Abigail's finished snowpeople, Abby, Bebe, Sylvie and Henry. :)