The Puddles

The kids played with the packing noodles!  They are the dissolvable kind.  Way cool!  Then Ben tried to help his cousin on the playset!  Very sweet of him!

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Chris’ side of the family came over the day after Christmas.  They even brought dinner with them!  That was nice!  It was a good day.  The kids were still happy to keep playing with their Christmas toys and they enjoyed hanging out with family.  We even got to test out the snowman milk container that Ainsley made for everyone!  They really turned out cute!!!

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consisted of the boys spending a large amount of time “killing zombies”.  And by boys  . . . I mean Chris and Dave.  Debra and her family came over for the rest of the afternoon after the celebrations were over.  I made a crockpot meal that turned out really good. Ainsley danced in front of the tv during a football game and I don’t think she was reprimanded once by the boys!  They were too busy killing zombies!  I like spending Christmas like that.  The kids play together for some fun and everyone just gets to relax.

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Madie asked for a violin for Christmas and Santa came through for her.  She is so excited.  Plus she starts lessons on Monday.

I think she looks like a natural.

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This was a wonderful Christmas.  Everyone was happy.  Everyone got what they asked for from Santa.  The day was good.

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We made our goal.  We made presents for everyone.  The kids and I that is.  Madie knitted a hat for Ainsley and put all of Ben’s lego directions into a binder that she created.  Ben decorated a box for Madie’s doll clothes and he “designed” a princess apron for Ainsley’s doll.  Ainsley painted pictures for all of her family.  We made shrinky dink necklaces for the girls in the family.  We made seek and find bottles for the toddlers.  We created a book, “Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar?” using our family as characters.  That turned out really cute.  We made lipgloss for everyone.  Madie decoupaged the containers for the lipgloss. Ben made butterfly houses for the grandparents. He nailed them together with Dad and painted them with Mom.  Made sewed a shoulder bag for Megan. (Really cute!).  I knitted hats for everyone.  But I really enjoyed sewing superman capes for the niece and nephew and an A&M dress and tutu outfit for Gracie.  The princess/supergirl cape for the  niece didn’t go over well.  But everything else was a success.  Plus I think I had more fun making all of it than anyone did receiving it.

Our favorite gift of all was the present for Daddy.  The kids made lists of every word they could think of that described Daddy.  Then they typed all of the words into an online program to create a beautiful picture.  Then the program puts the words together to form a picture.  In our case it was a heart . . . you have to see it to understand.  But it is cool.  Plus Daddy can hang it in his office and look at his accolades in the heart to know what is really important.

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The night before Christmas was a late one.  Chris got home late from church so we went to bed really late.  We called NORAD again.  That was absolutely the best ever!  Usually it sends the kids right to bed.  This time it sent Ben and Ainsley into tears!  Ben was freaking out that Daddy wouldn’t get home before Santa got to Texas.  He swore he heard Santa’s bells.  Ainsley was crying uncontrollably because she was really concerned that she hadn’t been good enough for Christmas.  Ugh. Poor thing.  I reassured her that she did good this year and that I was sure Santa would bring her presents.  Madie was my good child and went to bed without trouble.  Good girl.  

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Ainsley’s troop got to go to see Junie B. Jones at the Main Street Theatre in Houston. We took a great crowd of kids and their families.  It was fun!  Of course, we had seen many productions at this theatre and it was wonderful. Very cute and funny.  We loved it.  All three had a good time.  We went to get signatures of the actors.  Ironically Ainsley and Ben wanted nothing to do with most of them. They waited for their favorites and then got pictures with them.

Afterwards, I surprised the kids and took them to the Houston Children’s Museum for a few hours.

That was a lot of fun too.  I took some pictures with my iphone of the museum and with the actors.  Maybe I can figure how to get them off my phone at some point!

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Don’t tell my mom, but I ran out of ingredients for my Christmas goodies.  It was almost 8 at night and the kids were ready for bed.  But I needed that stuff and I was a single mom that night.  So I loaded the kids and we headed to Kroger.  We made the entire trip before the bread in the oven was done.  It was unnaturally fast!  The kids thought it was a really cool adventure.  I prayed we wouldn’t run into anyone we knew, but of course we did.  To commemorate the event, we stopped for a photo op.

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