Christmas Eve- We Believe!

Christmas Eve is a KILLER!

We pulled out the box of trains just to take the edge off.

We also made our annual trip to the store to pick out presents for the sibling gift swap.

We invited our good friends (and cousins!) over for Christmas Eve dinner. We were really sweating it at 3:30 when the Honey Baked Ham we ordered had not been delivered. Our local store closed this past year so we took a gamble and ordered one off the Internet. I nearly hugged and kissed the delivery boy when he dropped off the timely miracle at 3:35 (completely frozen), but he was moving too fast (lots of ham miracles to deliver!).

The kid's table overlooking the Christmas tree...

The main dining room...

Then we had to get the cookies ready for SANTA!

And the DESSERT. The Stones are known for their magnificent desserts. This year they treated us with a triple chocolate torte a and a banana nut roll!

We decided to rest and make a little more room for all that delicious dessert...

Jaws had other plans for the torte. He was impressed.

Then it was time to open our Christmas Jammies!

And our sibling presents!

We have a full house of believers!

This is going to be HUGE.

In fact, we had a hard time settling down so we decided to do a review of our favorite You Tube Christmas videos. Little Chief's fav by far is the Piano Guys, "Carol of the Bells". He enjoyed jamming on his new diamond sword while the Piano Guy jammed on his cello. 

I'm not sure it did the job of settling him down...

Here it comes...!

Christmas Buddies

These two have a long standing Christmas tradition of "sleeping over" the week leading up to Christmas. They drug out the spare Aerobed and burned the midnight oil chatting, reading Harry Potter, and making presents on their Rainbow Looms. They really are thick as thieves, best of friends.Who better to share to share the joy and anticipation of Christmas with? ...night after night... Will Christmas never come?!

Preschool Winter Program

Tuesday afternoon was Little Chief's  Winter Program. I was so happy that I could leave work early to get there in time for the performance. As luck would have it, I ended up sitting on the wrong side of the room and didn't have the close-up of LC that I wanted. Even worse, the poor kid spent the whole program searching the crowded cafeteria of adults for a familiar face. Despite the distraction, he did a great job singing and following instructions.

After the performance the kids were invited to join their parents for a snack, Thinking that no one came to hear him, he sadly moped backstage. As soon as he heard my voice calling for him he raced out, "Mom! You came! Were you late?! Did you hear me?" I told him I was there the whole time waving to him and he did wonderful job! 

Isn't he handsome?!

Here is our snack-time selfie. 

I am such a happy mommy.

Light It Up!

Here's a new one. We actually hung a few strands of light for Christmas.We had a few extra strands left over from years ago when we swapped out our giant retro bulb lights for tiny mainstream lights on the Christmas tree. Superkid, Abizella and I took advantage of an unusually balmy December afternoon and quickly threw them up. Pops acted as the official photographer for the event.

We drug the little potted trees from the drive way and placed them on either side of the porch and wrapped the lights around those.

Superkid manned the ladder and hung the lights up high on the house.

Good team work, right?

Superkid was particularly impressed...

Not a bad start. Next year we'll have to spread to the windows and bushes. 

Pops even suggested a wreath in the boy's room windows.

First Fudge

Fudge is an integral part of our the Toad family's holiday celebrations.We make many many batches to share with friends and neighbors. 

The first batch is critical. 

I assembled my panel of tasters for quality control.

 What a relief! It was a success. 

Of course they have insisted on testing every batch... just be be sure. 

I'm happy to report that we didn't have one single failed batch.

I'm also happy to report that we actually were able to distribute more than we consumed. 

I'm not sure I can report that for much longer!

Forbidden Fun

Jaws' new favorite game: Jumping off the stairs

Tadpole's favorite game: Pushing Jaws off the stairs

Christmas Date with the Little Toads

The big Toads were tied up with swim team practice, so the little Toads and I took the opportunity to go on a little Christmas date. All good dates start at Dunkin Donuts! Score 1 point Mom!

Next I took them to the Enchanted Village at Jordan's furniture store. My brilliant plan was to get there right when it opened so we could be first in line... we were bummed to see the long line of cars in the parking lot and even more bummed to see the enormous line (40 min!). Mom looses 1 point.

After about the first 30 seconds in the village Tadpole realizes it is just a giant doll house. I realize I might have taken the wrong kids. I'm loosing points fast.

At least there was a candy shop!

And a pet store!

Little chief was at least amused!

I may have lingered a little too long at the story time...

Tadpole was loosing his patience...

Then the snow started to fall! Hooray for snow! Snow is worth another point!

More giant dolls...

Not fun for boys...

Giant dolls caroling? At this point, I'm pretty sure Tadpole is the Grinch.

But the whole outing is saved by a giant maze through the furniture store's showroom and a rest on a "show" couch while we watched cartoons. Now that is something we could all enjoy.

Let's just call it a scratch.

Advent Count Down

For a kid, December is tough time. It is like a day never passes. Christmas will never come! Fortunately for us Grandma Sandi and Grandpa Bob sent us a little Lego fun to help us mark our time! This Lego Advent calendar is the coolest thing going. The kids have taken turns cracking open a compartment and finding a little Christmas town treasure all month long. Superkid had it all figured out by the first day. He calculated that he would be opening the Christmas Eve compartment to reveal Santa Claus. He was right! Yesterday Old St. Nick made his appearance just in time to deliver presents to all the good little boys and girls of Lego land. So much fun! Everyone had fun playing together every night with the little growing Christmas village.

We also have another advent calendar. My sister Jenny made a personalized calendar for our family to tuck away little activities in each pocket to help us mark the time until Christmas. The first year we did it, the calendar was wildly popular. Last year it was a little overwhelming for me to keep going with the baby and a full time job. This year when I pulled it out of the Christmas box I tucked it back inside not sure I was up for all of the planning and execution. Abizella caught me. She insisted we pull it out, hang it on the wall (which required a trip to the hardware store by Pops) and she would take care of everything else. And she did. That very night she locked herself in her room and wrote out a master plan for every night. She even gathered story books she would need, craft supplies and assembled lessons about the gift of Jesus' life (the plan of salvation) and Jesus birth, with props! 

Each night at dinner time a lucky child took a turn pulling an activity from a pocket!

Abizella also included a spotlight night for each member of the family. We all would take a turn saying wonderful things about that family member and she would then present a handmade gift. She presented Tadpole with a paper model of his favorite transformer, Mixmaster.

Pretty cool, right?!

We took turns acting out the nativity with finger puppets...

We did a Christmas karaoke sing-a-long using candy canes as microphones...

We made Christmas stocking and Christmas tree crafts...

On Superkid's spotlight night he got presented with a handmade diorama from Harry Potter's fourth book, The Goblet of Fire.

As Abizella obviously could not make her own surprise gift for her spotlight night, Superkid was charged with the task. He took a picture that he took of Abizella and her cousin Izzypop, printed it and bought a frame to put it in. Nailed it! She was thrilled!

Such a fun month! Thank-you Grandma, Grandpa and Abizella for making the passage of time so enjoyable! Every day of December has been a delight!