My Daily Blessings 3.0

We celebrated Christmas at Peggy's house this year on Christmas Eve.  All of our celebrating was done at home with our family of 4 last year so it was nice to be back to somewhat normal this year.  Evangeline made a very cool stop motion animation video with her Calico Critters to the poem "T'was the Night Before Christmas" and dedicated it to her Ammie for her Christmas present to her.  It was a big hit enjoyed by all.  She worked for HOURS on it.  The below picture is of her showing it to her cousins and her Uncle Phil.  Peggy asked us to bring a dessert.  Evangeline waisted no time volunteering to bring a cake.  She made a double layer chocolate cake with homemade vanilla buttercream frosting absolutely by herself.  We decided to garnish with sugared cranberries and rosemary leaves.  She pipped the icing around the bottom.  It was all-out stunning.  Baking is definitely a passion of hers and I'm so impressed at what she has ...

Alex's mom, Julia, heard about a place in Terre Haute (a gourmet cotton candy shop) that was offering private Christmas tea parties.  We thought this would be something fun to do with the girls, so we reserved a spot.  It was a lot of fun despite the fact that there was a little false advertising involved as far as the menu went.  Instead of the variety of scones, Christmas cookies, and tea sandwiches that were boasted by the advertisement, we were treated to a plate of Oreos and Loft House cookies from Walmart.  There was also a teenaged boy dressed as Santa that stayed at the table the whole time.  We got a good laugh out of the whole thing.  The girls had a lovely time despite the randomness of it all.   Christmas break is the BEST!  We love extra time in the mornings to snuggle as long as we want.... My kids also love to lounge in their PJs as long as they feel like it.  Wayne came and helped Kyle hang our new shelves.... These littl...

Christmas at Papa and Karen's is always pretty special.  The house is decked to the gills inside and out.  There's so much food, snacks, sweets, hot chocolate.  Evangeline loves the time with her cousins.  It's a present explosion.  The kids look forward to it all year.  Evangeline got a Chrome Book which she's been wanting to write her stories with.  Jed got a Nintendo Switch to feed his interest in the Mario Brothers.  We enjoyed a nice visit with Sabrina and Wanda, and saw Ira for the first time in about a year, since he's been out west at school.  Jed nearly jumped out of his skin when he opened up his Nintendo.  He is really good at showing people just how much he loves the gifts he receives.   The kids always like to go caroling around Papa's neighborhood.  It's been their tradition for the past several years.   They cried a good deal of the way home.  I remember crying as we pulled away from my Grandp...

South School is a really exciting place around the holidays!  We had different dress up days all the week leading up to Christmas break.  Here we are on holiday accessory day!  One day the week leading up to break, our principal, Mrs. Morgan found me in the hallway and told me I needed to drop everything and report to the office.  When I got there I found the rest of the 1st grade teachers there too!  She told us she was taking us on a little getaway.  We boarded the school's short bus where Christmas music was blaring and were driven to McDonalds to get whatever drink we wanted.  While we were gone she had aides covering our classrooms.  It was such a fun surprise.  She told us how much she appreciates all we have done during this super challenging school year, and this was just a little something special.  Evangeline participated in the locker decorating contest.  She had such fun bringing her supplies and getting it done during h...