December thus far...

It's been a busy month so far with parties and all the fun festivities that come with December. The boys kicked the month off with making a gingerbread train. It was a good exercise in self restraint for me letting them do all the work...my Type A personality started to show very quickly!
We also went to the annual Downtown Parade with our friends, the Crawfords and Miss Pattie. In spite of the FREEZING weather, the boys enjoyed watching the floats go by and getting candy thrown at them. Owen was pretty much done with the parade and his puffy jacket the minute we got there, but he managed to stay in one piece for the whole thing...
My mom came in town and watched the boys for us while Chris and I went to his Christmas party... I decided the beauty of being pregnant during Christmas parties is that I don't have to worry about "sucking in" while wearing a dress, but all in all, I'd much rather be wearing pajama pants!

This past Monday we had a "Happy Birthday, Jesus" party, and I have to say I was so very impressed with my amazing momma friends! It started out as a simple kid's Christmas party and it quickly evolved into a serious extravaganza!!! We have four "stations" of activities, a birthday cake for Jesus, food provided by the wonderful Miss Pattie, a Veggie Tale Christmas cartoon, and a gift exchange...
My friend Kari and I manned the cookie decorating table. I'm pretty sure more candy and icing went into mouths than did on the cookies, but the kids didn't seem to care! My favorite was watching Chaucer lick the table clean.
Two other moms worked the ornament making table, and all the kids had adorable ornaments to hang out the tree when they got home.
The third station was music and the story of Jesus' birth... I didn't get to hear much of the singing, but what I did hear was pretty cute. And the fourth station, of which I didn't get pictures, was a gift/box stacking game. I think the knocking down of the gifts was the best part.
After a wonderful lunch, we sang Jesus happy birthday, and the kids enjoyed some more sugar. We then opened gifts from the kids that drew each others names. All the kids seemed to love what they were given, and they were hilarious watching them show their friends their new toys.
I have to say that we are so very blessed to have such good friends. I could not survive momma-hood with the women that put this event on, and I am so glad that the boys are seeing what true friendship looks like at such an early age. We all joked that we're going to have to rent a place out next year because none of us have a place big enough to host the expanding group!