The Twelve Days Of Christmas...

I'm so far behind in blog posts that I decided to do a "Twelve Days Of Christmas" theme and briefly mention 12 things that we've been doing lately. Most of it has been hands on, so there aren't pictures to go with it. Baking and crafts usually mean lots of supervision when Scott is working, so there's not really an extra hand to take pictures. Sad, but true. I think the kids appreciate me just spending time with them though, so it's worth it all in the end.

Day 1: Lots of Christmas baking(delivering to the neighbors, firemen, policemen, nurses and other people Scott's been working for lately.

Day 2: Taking care of a missionary family. Lots of fun, book reading, Scrabble playing and food preparation, not to mention eating:).

Day 3: Singing Christmas Songs at Caleb Village/Ladies Christmas Party. The children were extremely well behaved=Very happy parents:).

Day 4: Enjoying the super cute Baby Adelaide(Lots of extra reading while she's nursing.

Day 5: Making 26 jars of Cookies to Go gifts and 20 jars of jam. I made a variety of these, but won't mention what they are yet. Some of the blog readers may be recipients and I don't want to spoil the surprise completely:).

Day 6: Handing out Christmas Cards at church(We've had a lot of fun receiving them with pictures from Friends too. One of my favorite parts about Christmas!

Day 7: Playing outside in the "tiny bit of snow". The parents are thankful for the lack of snow this year. The kids are hoping for a bit more.

Day 8: Christmas shopping alone and with Elyssia.

Day 9: Making and painting clay ornaments. Very fun, but very messy with the younger ones. I won't post pictures of these either. It was my first time to do them and I think we'll add it to our list of things to do as a family each year.

Day 10: Make and decorate a gingerbread house. The homemade one was a failure, but the storebought one was very enjoyable until the two youngest ones ate most of the candy. I was also the volunteer from our church to sit at the Salvation army table at Walmart. We ended up with a 4 hours shift, due to shortage of volunteers. I took Elyssia and Adelaide with me. I think they'll probably ask us to come again once they see how much the girls brought in:). All the older people would come by, hear Elyssia say, "Merry Christmas" and the cute baby and stop to put in a donation. They were putting in $5's , $10's and $20's , not just their spare change. All the donations went to buy Turkeys for poor families for Christmas. We enjoyed it for the most part. The girls were very good. The last hour we were a bit tired and definitely ready to go at 8. It's another tradition to add to the list. Helping to kids to see that Christmas is about giving, not just receiving. Elyssia is definitely more into it this year. It's neat to see her get into the "giving" spirit. Sometimes she's "re-gifting" her own toys, but that's okay with us:).

Day 11: Meeting a family that Scott is working for. I REALLY enjoyed getting to know them. Wish the older daughter and her family lived closer. The 15 year old one played with the kids and said that she's willing to babysit for us. They live 10 minutes from us and the older daughter was really good friends with the original owners of our house. We found out a lot of interesting things about it. Looking forward to visiting with them. The lady Scott works for LOVED having our kids over and said to bring them over anytime. She has a playhouse, swingset, etc that the kids played on. I think we'll try to visit several times while Scott is working for them. There are a lot of renovations going on and it will take him several weeks. It's an amazing old house. I'm excited to see the finished product:).

Day 12= Today for us. We finished wrapping presents and tomorrow is our day to celebrate. We've got a chicken ready to cook, Christmas music to listen to, presents to open and the day to relax and play with the kids. Tomorrow night we'll have our Christmas eve service at the church. We're really looking forward to visiting with everyone that can make it. Baked goodies are ready and several of the ladies are bringing a plate, which is always a nice treat.

So, that's a little glimpse into our house for the past couple weeks. We've also had a lot of LEGO construction going on. Garrison continues to impress us with his creations. I can only imagine what he will be building by the time he's 10:). The other kids are doing well. Elyssia finished her second Math book, half of her English book, half of her other school curriculum and continues to get "A"s in all of the above. Looking forward to the second half of the school year and possibly going to the homeschool conference in Saskatoon. We'll see...

I also need to call my Grandpa tonight, so I'd better go for now.

Wishing all of my readers a Merry Christmas!!!