Last-Minute Christmas Rush! Pt. 3--Gingerbread Houses & Other Stuff

Let's see if I can get caught up...

First, Lorelai had several big Christmas activities in her first-grade class this year (including going to school in her pajamas and watching The Polar Express), but one of the most exciting activities (and probably the messiest) was the gingerbread-house-making activity. Parents were invited, so I decided to come lend a hand & take some pictures.

Now, since these are first graders, and everyone's on a budget, no actual gingerbread was used in making the gingerbread houses. Hee hee. However, there were tons of graham crackers available, and many many buckets of frosting. In addition, Lorelai's teacher provided a small milk carton for each kid, so they could "frame" their house properly--I thought it was a great idea and it helped the houses from falling apart!

Here are all the "trimmings" for the houses...

And here are the mountains of graham crackers, candy & icing, with Celeste & Aurora jealously looking on...they came along as my "helpers"/hangers-on.

Lorelai was hard at work applying various decorations.

Lorelai's finished house...cute!

Here are several more homes, waiting to harden for the trip home after school!

It probably goes without saying that Lorelai's house didn't last the weekend. By the end, she was literally licking the icing off the milk carton. Eeeewwww...

That very same night, our ward had its annual Christmas party. The theme was The Polar Express (again; Lorelai got two "Polar Express" parties in two days!); once again, our kids were in pajamas! It was a nice enough program, though...the Primary sang a song, there were a few special musical numbers (one featuring a harp!), a Nativity reading, the Bishopric singing The Chipmunks' "Christmas Song"--you know, the usual ward Christmas party fare.

Nativity reading/harp solo

Unfortunately, most of my pictures from the party didn't work too well, but hopefully this gives you an idea what it looked like. Plus, in this picture you can see the cute handcrafted mini-Christmas-tree centerpieces that were at each table; a friend of mine helped make them, and then gave one to me after the party to keep! Yay! I love accumulating new Christmas decorations that I don't have to make myself :)

Plus, every kid got a little jingle bell to take home. Lorelai had lots of fun waving it in our faces for a few days. However, I have a bit of an affinity for the sound of jingle bells myself...I find them soothing and evocative. So, I have one of those jingle bells in my purse to this day (January 18, 2012!), so I can listen to the festive sound it makes when I'm walking around :)

And thus went the last day of school before our long Christmas break (Lorelai's charter school takes three weeks off at the end of the year!). On the following day, it was yet another Christmas party...this time a party for neighborhood residents at the clubhouse. There were many activities available for the family...

...like train riding...

...visiting the fire truck...

climbing around on various inflatable recreation devices...

...and riding dinosaurs at the playground.

Doesn't Christmastime in Arizona look nice and sunny?? It should, because it was...

The "big event" of this day, however, was SANTA. He was waiting to greet all the children, just next to the lake. After a (blessedly) brief wait in line, the girls got to meet the big guy himself.

Some of my daughters were more thrilled about this meeting than others. At any rate, Lorelai was sure to tell Santa the three things she wanted for Christmas: a Wii, an Ariel toy, and a unicorn toy. Well, two out of three ain't bad...more on that in a later blog post...