Christmas post

It's always easier to give the rundown in photos, so here it is:

December 24th. Hudson and Tag sitting at the window, playing with the snowglobes, and eagerly awaiting our guests.

Happy Birthday Nana!!Opening the stockings from Nana in the afternoon.Hudson's favorite gift. Even after opening all his other gifts in the days to come, he still said this one was his favorite. Nobody likes breakfast more than Hudson.The pretty girls.The hungry boys.Christmas Eve story - a tradition. Two this year - Splat the Cat helps at Christmas & Stick Man - because I just couldn't decide.December 25th. Christmas morning faces - 7:00amLots of thank-you, Christmas hugs.

Reagan getting a lesson on her new iPod.A friendly game of mini ping-pong. A gift for Cooper from Santa.December 27th. Braun Christmas at John & Christine's.

Tag showing Anita his new painting set from Oma and Opa.A thank-you hug for Oma from Cooper.Not sure what this discussion was about.Cooper hanging out with Caleb. So fun to have more little kids around.

Opa finding joy in the kids. Isn't that what it's all about?Hope that you all found some joy this holiday season.

Lots of lovely Christmas stuff going on here, close to home. Staying in our jammies, wearing our new housecoats, eating lots of chip and dip, playing games, going for walks to the park.

I will update with photos soon.

Hope everyone's holidays are happy.

Sunday

I decided to attempt some Christmas baking again. My last attempt was not too successful. I spent the whole morning and some of the afternoon knee deep in chocolate, almonds, flour, and icing sugar. This time I did good.
It must have been the Christmas carols playing. Tony even kept football off the TV most of the day to help set the mood and not jinx the baking marathon that was going on.


A game of monopoly took place between Cooper and Tony. Tony takes this game far too seriously so we had to lighten the whole thing with a game of Nerf darts. He happened to be wearing the perfect shirt for it - they all stuck to him. The kids thought this was pretty funny.

Love the look on Reagan's face in this one. He waited it out and then they got back down to business.

This is Cooper and Tony deep in discussion about how Cooper, who had no money left and owed $950 in rent, was going to stay in the game.

Sunday I felt that I got back on track with Christmas preparations. I still have lots to do (I should be wrapping right now) but I got myself back in the spirit. The funniest thing was how Reagan and Tag have started making lists about what they are going to do during the day. They have obviously been watching as I scribble my lists down furiously and then try and cross things off. There lists seem to be a little less labour-intensive than mine, but important none-the-less.

This week...

Lots of fun Christmas activities happening at school this week. So, as a result, I spent quite a bit of time up there helping in various classes with various crafts.

Tuesday we helped 22 little five year olds (including Tag) make evergreen centerpieces that really would be the glowing center of any table, complete with plastic snowflakes and faux poinsettia blooms hot glue-gunned on. I burnt my finger on the glue gun and my friend Julie (another kindergarten Mom) clipped her finger with the pruners but other than that it was successful.

Wednesday we made gingerbread houses in Reagan's class. Hers was the prettiest. I'm quite sure that none of her classmates read this blog so I can say that. :)

Thursday was school wide craft day. I floated from class to class helping with a variety of tasks: threading beads onto pipe cleaners, gluing pompoms onto Santa hats, squirting glitter glue onto snowmen, and, unfortunately, hot-gluing ribbon onto ornaments (yes, another burn to the finger). We had a lovely collection come home to add to our tree.

Today, we are officially on Christmas vacation. Cheers to two weeks of no school lunches to pack.

Christmas photo teaser

The snow was just starting to fall as we headed out to do the Christmas card photo shoot that we all sooooo enjoy(big dose of sarcasm inserted here).

It actually went off without too much trouble. Just the usual "look at the camera", "look at the camera", "LOOK AT THE CAMERA".

Of course I can't post the final photo here because that would ruin the surprise for those of you who get an actual photo from us in the mail. So here's a teaser: P.S. Only 12 more sleeps until Santa.

Christmas has arrived at the Symonds house

It took us a while to get going but once we did there was no stopping us.

In the course of 3 days we:

-went Christmas shopping

-decorated Christmas cookies

-did a Christmas puzzle

-watched some Christmas movies

-went to the Christmas tree farm

-cut down our Christmas tree

-drank Christmas hot chocolate-decorated our Christmas tree

-put up all the Christmas decorations

-listened to Christmas music
It's official - we're in the season. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Science Fair update - On Friday Cooper advanced to the next level of competition. This means that, in March, he competes against other kids in the district. He called me on my cel as soon as he found out and acted very cool while telling me that he had made it. I know that he was beaming on the inside - so was I.

FPOTM - November

It's absolutley the perfect shot for how I felt most of this month. CRAZY!!!