25 Days of christmas- Days 12 & 13

 Day 12

 Rebecca playing with the Hanukkah puzzle.

Day 13

 And because it is Christmas time that means I can use eggnog for my coffee instead of cream. I know there is not much love for the nog, but in this house it is welcome. Also this year I can put Kahlua and rum in it.

Gingerbread House Time

In continuing with the tradition my randfather sent us a gingerbread house. We received one last year and being a novice at building one I didn;t wait long enough for the frosting to harden so the walls kind of started to slide inside the house. This year I got smart and we waited until the frosting had hardened on each part before going onto the next part. i.e. I did the sides first and then when that was hard I put the roof on. And I even went back and reinforced all the seams with extra frosting.

With the house sitting there staring at him in the face Aiden kept asking me when he could decorate his house. I had planned on doing it Sunday, but then he came down with a fever so I didn't think that it was appropriate for him to be "playing" with food when he was not feeling so great. Today he stayed home from daycare and of course when I got home from an interview I had this morning he immediately asked me if he could decorate his house. Other then the temp and a lack of appetite he was doing pretty good so hey, what the heck. He did have fun building it and it came out looking really good. A lot of frosting was eaten in the process as well. 

 sampling the candy before decorating.

 details to the roof

Admiring his work.

Aiden wanted to take his own picture of the house.

 The final product.

Bridgewater Festival of Lights

Last night we got together with friends and headed over to see The Festival of Lights in Bridgewater. Its at a person's house and they have this whole lights display in their backyard that you can walk through. It's a good size if you have snall children that lose interest in things quickly and the best part about the whole thing is that its free. They actually just ask that you make a donation that goes to a local charity. There is a fire pit going to keep you warm and they offer popcorn, hot chocolate, coffee, donuts or cookies as well free of charge. You can even get your picture with Santa permitting that you donate $5. Aiden had a blast going and I am sure that he will be even more excited when we go to Edaville next week for Christmas Eve. This year has been the best so far because Aiden has been so amazed by the decor and he finally understands Christmas. He may not get the purpose of it, but he loves the lights and the trees and he knows that Santa brings presents. Our issue is going to be explaining to him the difference between Hanukkah and Christmas. I tried already and he definitely didn't seem to understand.

And a little sneak peak at our night.

 Entrance

 All around they ahd little display boxes that had scenes in them.

 Rebecca all bundled up.

 Santas candy shop.

 Aiden and Max

25 Days of Christmas- Day 11

One of our ornaments. For a while I was on a Santa kick so I bought a number of Santa related things, then it went to butterflies and right now I am on a snowman thing.

25 Days of Christmas- Day 10

Pardon the pin stocking. I have a matching snowman stocking for Rebecca and I have no idea where it is to get her name stitched on it so the pink one will have to do for this year.

25 Days of christmas- days 8 & 9

 I love seeing our cats so cozy under the tree.

Our snowman family ornaments.

Little Holiday Crafts time

I was reading a blog of a fellow mom and she was talking about how she wishes she had more time to do some of the holiday crafts with her kids that she saw on other blogs and on Pinterest. And of course seeing a few of the things that she wanted to make made the crafty side of me come out. I'll admit that I have not taken full advantage of the 3 days a week that Aiden is home with me to do more crafting and drawing so today I decided that we would do something together while Rebecca was sleeping and she wouldn't get into everything either. Here is what we did today. I still need to add some final finishing touches so that we can put it up. Maybe a decorative frame with a red bow on it.

 Painting my hand for the first layer.

 Painting his hand for the second color.

 Adding in a third color just on his fingers.

 Holly berry details

Our hand print wreath.