We awoke Christmas Eve morning to find this sitting atop our backyard neighbor's tree. We were all mezmerized by it for a few minutes. It was kind of funny really, you see Eric has always told the kids that the birds were Santa's spys. Who else could fly back up to the north pole? Right before we spotted this guy, the kids had been getting to each other again. Once Eric pointed out the hawk, they quieted down nicely.
It was a quiet day for us, for the most part. Eric spent most of the day out in the garage finishing/making one of the boys' gifts. The kids and I had baked my final batch of cookies the day before, so I was done with the kitchen. And the kids were still happy to be together on break, so the contention was minimal. But they were starting to get bored by lunchtime, as usual.
We waited until Maddie went down for her nap to open our family game/activity to get us through Christmas Eve. It isn't alway easy to find a game that will be easy enough for Eme and yet fun for Aidan, there's a 5 year age difference. But we made a great choice with the Toy Story edition of "Ker-Plunk". It was easy enough for Eme, and fun for everyone, Davin especially loved the aliens. Eric and I had lots of fun playing it too, and "helping" each other to loose more aliens.>
The game got us through the duldrums of the afternoon until it was time to head over to Nana and Papa's house for dinner, a talent show, and the Christmas story. Thankfully, Maddie had been on the anitbiotic eyedrops for more than 24 hours (pink eye), so we could all still make it. It was a bit more challenging this year, having to keep Maddie as much away from the other kids as we could, but we managed. Dinner was wonderful, as always. And the kids did a great job with their parts in the talent show. Aidan had been working on a magic trick of making a scarf disappear for a few days, Davin drew pictures of "gingerbread dinosaurs", and Eme learned "Jingle Bells". I told the Christmas story based on the candles of Advent, with the help of the Little People Christmas sets (8 kids 9 and under), and then we read from Luke.
We headed home for our traditional Christmas pj's. I love doing this at home, and then sending the kids straight to bed.
the girls
the boys
3 comments:
You have the best ideas - a family fun activity sounds great, I will totally have to try that in the future. I love the idea of bird spies - I'll use that one too!
Cute jammies!
Lilly thought that it was so neat to have the same pjs and Eme. I guess we have good taste.
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