Christmas fun

I wanted to post this before Christmas! Here are a few things we have been doing to enjoy the break from school! First, the kids decorated a gingerbread man. This was a kit that was purchased from Trader Joe's.






I think they had more fun eating the stuff than actually decorating. The funny thing is, I actually asked them not to eat the stuff because they already had a treat that day. Once they started eating it, how could I stop them? I mean, eating the decorations is the best part!


Here he is. I did the icing because it was too hard for them to do but I followed where they told me to put it.

A few days later we had a friend over to make gingerbread (or graham cracker) houses. E saw some gingerbread houses at a friend's house and really wanted to take it home with him so I promised we would make one. So I took the kids to the store so they could pick out the stuff. I decided to get a box of graham crackers so that everyone could make their own mini house. I looked at the "kits" at Dominick's and it was $15 for a house that was already constructed and then you would have to buy everything to decorate the house separately. I wanted each kid to have their own house. I also bought one big can of frosting and opted not to get the colored icing but instead mixed up some frosting with some food coloring. Then the kids got to pick a few candies. They chose M&M's, jelly beans, and gum drops. Plus we got a can of assorted sprinkles.

Here they are hard at work.









Once they got to work, I almost regretted not getting the pre-constructed house because they had a hard time getting the houses put together and I ended up doing all of the building. However, they did have a good time decorating and of course eating their work.

I also remembered that we had cones left over from our ice cream party this summer and let E decorate a cone with green frosting to make a tree. He added some M&M's and a yellow gum drop on the top.


The finished houses.





I think it is safe to write about this one! This project the kids did for their parents as a Christmas gift. I bought a box of clear glass ornaments and let the kids squirt a few colors of acrylic paint inside. Then they shook them and twisted them to get the paint all over the inside.





After they were finished, I turned them upside down to drain on some paper towel.


Then I put the tops back on and wrapped it in a piece of paper the kids had painted on. I think they turned out really cute. The kids were a lot more careful with the glass than I expected and none of them got broke!


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