Weekly Wrap-Up for the Week of December 14

And another busy week . . .

Before Lexie knew about making the cookies to pass out after church, she had promised Little Bit that they could make gingerbread men, so that was one of this week's projects. It took all day, and made a huge mess, but Little Bit had fun, and the cookies are actually pretty yummy.
As a convenient bonus, they are relatively healthy too . . . whole wheat flour, natural sweeteners, etc. We used this recipe.

This week was also when we FINALLY decorated for Hanukkah and Christmas. I tried to convince them that since it took us so long, we should skip the tree this year, but they had it all planned out and would have been soo disappointed if they didn't get to carry out their plan, so we went with it. Little Bit got to decorate the small pink tree in the girls' bedroom, AND the small purple tree in the school room.

The big girls took charge of the bigger tree in the living room. They had decided to combine the 2 holidays that we celebrate in December, and decorate the tree with Hanukkah colors, so after Christmas last year we found silver and blue balls on clearance, and the girls borrowed some more blue and silver balls from Mama when they helped decorate her tree a few weeks ago. They spent as long deciding on a specific "pattern" (don't ask me what it is) as they did actually decorating the tree, but they had fun with it, so whatever works . . .

The final result was nice, and there wasn't TOOO much arguing involved!

Hanukkah started Tuesday night. The first night's gift was a menorah of their own for each of the girls. In addition to being pretty to have more candles lit, it solved the whole "it's my turn to light the menorah!" argument. Now they each have one to light!

We had music lessons on Wednesday this week, because Thursday was otherwise occupied.

Thursday was super busy, but super fun too! My friend, Amy, is a part of a homeschool co-op group that was going to Fulton Theatre to see a performance of the Nutcracker, and asked if we wanted to come too. It was a performance just for school groups, so geared toward kids, and was great! It was a "play" rather than the "ballet" (which we watched on DVD last year, but was really hard to follow the storyline, the play was much more kid-friendly). The actors encouraged the kids to clap along, and such, and then, at the end, came out and answered questions.

As we were driving back from the Theatre, and eating our lunches, Little Bit took a bite of her sandwich, and her (extremely loose) front tooth fell out! She was very excited! Her sisters are now telling her that she should work extra hard to get her other (also loose) front tooth out before Christmas so she can actualy say "all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!"

On our way home from the play, we stopped by Amy's house for the afternoon. Lexie is playing violin with Amy's daughter, and another little girl for church next weekend, so they all practiced, and the kids played all afternoon, including putting on their own version of the Nutcracker, which was awesome! So fun to see which parts of the show made the biggest impression on the various kids.

With the coming of Hanukkah, our "Hanukkah Fairies" came to visit as well. They've been doing many of the "normal" things, like bringing donuts and such, but this year they had a special surprise just for Little Bit! After watching the movie, Frozen, last month, she is totally obsessed. AND ever since last summer when we made sensory "ice cream" (flour and baby oil) for her to play with, she's been asking when we can make it again. So Thursday night while the girls were sleeping, the fairies made up a batch of the sensory stuff (but called it snow), and the characters of Frozen came to play in the snow with the fairies, and Little Bit. She still likes the "ice cream" aspect of the sensory dough, so she got out the ice cream scoop too. She's spent HOURS playing with that stuff! I suspect we'll be using it alot this winter while cold temperatures keep us inside more.

And finally, we wrapped up our week, with Lexie and Ashlyn teaching in Little Bit's class at church. The story was the shepherds visiting baby Jesus, so the girls had all the kids dress up (Mary, Joseph, shepherds, angels . . .) and act out the story with Ashlyn "directing" and Lexie "narrating". It was adorable to watch :)