Jolly Holiday party

We had our Christmas party on Friday night. The girls were so excited the night before, and found it was torture to have to go to school all day. They were super excited when they got home. They wanted to get all dressed up as soon as I would let them. Ben talked me into letting them wear their new Christmas dresses. I don't think anyone's got messed up, so it turned out great.

Three little fancies. They didn't wear the coats for more than 5 minutes, but they sure looked sweet.

I'm lucky that Ben took care of most of the food/set up while I was getting ready for the party. I did come down to help him when I was finished. (not to mention spending all week cleaning and getting things ready.) I think we did a pretty good job on the amount of food this year. We didn't have near the amount of leftovers as we have in the past.

I only baked 2 desserts this year, so I felt that I got off easy enough.

Ben and I got dressed up too, though not as fancy as the girls. And isn't he looking great 50 lbs lighter than last year?

I didn't get a chance to sit on Santa's lap, but Ben was happy to oblige.

The kids were sure excited when the big guy showed up at the door!

They were all very sweet asking their funny questions, and telling Santa that they love him.

One of the kids asked if he was the real Santa, so Todd took a peek at his I.D. He checked out.

He read the kids a story, and then he got offended and left because the adults were being too loud, and wouldn't quiet down. He told Ben that one of the adults made rude comments when he asked them to keep it down, so he left a little abruptly. I don't think most of the kids noticed anything was amiss, but it was still disappointing the way it all went down. I guess everyone has bad days, though.

One of the highlights was getting to spend time with this sweet little guy! He is just a great baby, and we have the same birthday!

I think everyone enjoyed the party despite the unexpected drama. Evie said that it was the best Christmas party ever.


Here's a few random crafts that have been keeping the girls and me busy. We bought a cardboard cone, and I attached gathered ribbon around in layers. Kiersten and I made this the day after Thanksgiving while the other 2 girls were at work with Ben.

It turned out cute. I love crafts that the kids can easily help with, but they still look great when finished.

Kiersten and I also made this picture frame craft. It was quick and easy. I just cut out the "Ho Ho Ho" with my cricket, and then glued them onto craft paper and framed them. While we were making it, Kiersten said, "didn't we see this on pinterest Mom?" and when Kara got home, she declared, "Mom! You stole that idea off pinterest!" So I had to laugh. Yes, I'm an idea thief, but isn't that what pinterest is for?

Here are the soup cans we made for the girl scout party. The girls painted them solid colors, and when they were dry, I added the details. We have a squishy red ball we used to knock them over. The girls seemed to like it. Evie is particularly fond of the little baby snowman. And if I save up more cans, I can keep adding to the game for next year. We also brought these out for our Christmas party on Friday.

I had fabric left over from doing situpons with the Daisy scouts, so I used it to make bean bags. We can probably keep using these for future meetings too, so I think they will get lots of use.

I made a big snowman bean bag toss game. I should have found a better way to stand up the board. It kept tipping forward, so I had to have the scouts take turns holding it for each other, but they didn't seem to mind. We also set this up on Friday, and I plan to use it at Evie's preschool Christmas party this week, so we've gotten good use out of it so far.

I found this cute wooden sign, and painted it a sparkly green. I wish I'd gone with red or gold, because it does kind of blend into the green wall a bit.

Evie made a cute picture that she wanted displayed on the fridge during our Christmas party. A few people even commented on it, so she was very proud.

I made this wrapping paper craft at the last minute while I was cleaning last week. I can't decide if I like it, but it will be easy to pull off the paper and do something different next year if I don't want to hang it again.

This is the craft I came up with for Evie's school party. I am really hoping that it will go well. It could get a little messy with the gluing, but I'm hopeful that the kids will be able to do it. Evie saw this practice one when I picked her up from school today, and was pretty excited, so that's a good sign.

We've really been feeling the Christmas cheer around here lately. My head is spinning just thinking of all the stuff I can do with the girls next week when they're out of school!