Gingerbread Houses

Last night we made our Gingerbread houses. It's one of my favorite holiday traditions. I've been making them since I was a little one. The girls were so excited and we had such a fun time.

Daddy and Brooke made one together. Brooke was a real good decorator.

 Look at those two hard at work.

And as you can see on Brooke's face, she did quite a bit of candy sampling as well!

Aubrey loved every single second of it, as I expected.

Aubrey and I made a house together.

After I built the house, my only job was to place the frosting where Aubrey wanted me to put it and grab the candy she wanted to decorate with. Aubrey did the rest. She had to put every single kind of candy that we had on the house.

Daddy and Brooke with their finished house.

Mommy and Aubrey with what I thought was our finished house.

As I was putting away the candy, Aubrey said, "Mommy I found a candy that we didn't put on my house." Well that just wouldn't do, she had to put some of the green candy on too! This time she insisted on doing the frosting herself and she did a great job at it too!

Mmmm frosting sure is yummy!

Two hours after we began, I had to insist that Aubrey was finished. Now that's a Gingerbread house! Complete with a yard full of snow! Aubrey must have known that was what our yard was going to look like when we woke up this morning!

What a darling little decorator!

I'm so glad that my girls had such a fun time. It makes all of the work of making them worth it!!

Ward Christmas Party

A week from Saturday was our annual ward Christmas Party. It was a Christmas Luau like two years back. It was a really fun party and the girls had a blast!

In the morning I told Aubrey there would be dance performances. She immediately started making up a dance that she would perform for everyone. I had to explain that she would not performing this time. She took it pretty well.

As soon as the dance performance started my girls were on the floor dancing with them, and they did not stop all night!

Daddy twirls!

Happy girl.

I just love to dance!

I love my cute little dancers!

The whole fam at the party.

The cutest little nerd on the planet!

And yet another visit with Santa! We never get enough of these!

And it must be 4th times a charm - because Brooke did not cry at all when I sat her on Santa's lap!

I even got one with just her and Santa!

 

What a fun night! Thanks to all the Activities Committee on such a wonderful evening!

Story Time with Mrs. Clause

I found out that the mall was having a special story time with Mrs. Clause a week from Friday - so I had to take my girls! 

You see Brooke sitting there nicely - that only lasted a few minutes.

Then she had to wander.

Where'd my sister go?

When a few kids left, Aubrey made her way closer to Mrs. Clause.

Brooke found some puffy snow that she LOVED and Mommy thought it would be a good photo op.

Aubrey saw us taking pictures and wanted to join in too.

I only wish she would look at the camera!

My cute little elves!

Matchy Matchy Mrs. Claus's

Brooke was not thrilled to be deposited on her lap.

Santa showed up after story time - so we had to visit with him as well!

This time Brooke only cried for a second and then settled down.

We ended up playing in the indoor playground afterward and it was the perfect size for my girls. It was a really fun outing with my sweethearts.

The Stage

Ever since Aubrey was 2 she has been acting out anything that has made an impression on her. It started with her 2 year old birthday party that she is still acting out very regularly.

This week it has been the stage. She loved dancing on the stage a couple of weeks ago and decided she needed to make her own concert hall and stage.

She has been setting up the little chairs in rows in Brooks room. My chair is the rocker in the back.

Then she puts down a blanket in the hall to be the stage.

We have had all sorts of performances on her stage - dance shows, singing, plays & movies to name a few. Brooke is a very willing participant in all of these concerts.

 

Oh what fun it is to be young and all that is desired can be created with whatever is on hand!

Preschool - A is for Art

Since I and Aubrey love art, I thought it would be fun to have a preschool day where we try different types of art. Since I knew some may not want to sit the whole time I decided to do some performing arts along with visual arts.

Our first art was Sculpture. Since it's December we had to make Christmas ornaments. I have these cool cookie stamps and so the kids made a red Santa, green Christmas tree and gold sleigh ornaments. They all enjoyed making them. Here's Aubrey's finished sleigh.

Then we made an animal collage.

We moved onto Visual Arts and did a Freeze dance. They loved it!

Then I taught them about color mixing. They were really into it. They thought that it was so cool that two colors mixed together could turn into another color. They would yell excitedly something like, "Mine turned purple!" I couldn't get a picture of this because #1 Brooke was making a huge mess with the paints & #2 It was a really hands on lesson.

Then we put on a play "The Three Little Pigs." This was also a hit. We had to do it 3 times because all but one wanted a turn at being the Big Bad Wolf. Aren't they so cute in their masks?

Here's Aubrey knocking on the door of the 3rd little pigs house.

Brooke wanted to wear the mask too - that is until I put it on her. Gotta love the paint all over her hands and shirt.

 Then it was snack time - Apples and Animal Crackers. And then time to go. It turned out to be a really fun preschool day!

Of course we didn't get to everything I prepared, so Aubrey did her drawing worksheet after the other kids had left.

Then she discovered that we had lots of left over clay. She spent the rest of the morning making ornaments. I believe we ended up with another 35 ornaments. Good thing Grandma wants some ornaments to decorate the tree at the cabin.

Brookie getting involved in the ornament making too!

I just love art and am so happy that my little girls are gaining a love for it too!

First thing the next morning the girls painted their ornaments.

 Brookie only lasted for a few ornaments and did a lot of painting on her hands and shirt as well. The little monkey!

Aubrey happily painted all of the rest. I even got her some chocolate milk (both the girls favorite snack) and she completely ignored it until she was done. I just love her long attention span!

It's so fun to make Christmas crafts!