Christmas Magic

Wow, what a storm. With the blizzard blasting us, I thought it would be a good time to update.

The last few days have been quite fun and full of Christmas Spirit. Thursday was big day for Alex. We decided to take him to Santa Village at Rheault Farm. Our first stop was to the donation barn. We dropped off our canned goods and headed over to check out the donation train. Alex really liked the trains. The Elves stopped the train so kids could toss a dollar in one of the box cars! We then headed over to the bunker house to make an ornament. I did most of the work. Well, if you call glueing work :). I tried to get Alex to put the red ball/nose on our reindeer ornament, but he found it much more fun to toss the balls in and out of the bucket. We then headed over to the house. It was very festive. Inside, we found Santa waiting. While we signed the guest book, Santa informed Granddad that the hot "drink" they were serving was staining his beard and mustache. He hoped next year Budweiser was sponsoring the event!! lol. After Alex had his picture taken, he went in to the kitchen, and Mrs. Claus helped him decorate a cookie. Alex LOVED shaking the sprinkles. On the way out, we checked out the reindeer.

The evening continued once we got home. I mixed up gingerbread and sugar cookie dough earlier in the day, so Alex got to make cookies for the first time. Gingerbread boys are a tradition in my family. I've made gingerbread boys every year with my mom since I was just under 2. I was excited that Grams was visiting to carry on the tradition. Alex quickly found out how wonderful the dough tastes! He attempted to cut out some cookies , but he, mostly, just stole chunks of dough. I thought we would decorate the boys with raisins but someone was eating them faster than I could put them on. We decided to let him decorate with sprinkles. I think three boys ended getting half a bottle of sprinkles. Oh well, it sure was fun!

On Friday, we headed out to chop down our Christmas tree. When we arrived, we got Alex into his bibs, coat, hat, and snow boots. We had a lot of trouble getting his boots on, so he wasn't able to walk around very well. We put him in the sled, grabbed our saw, and took off. We didn't get too far until he started crying. Once he tumped out of the sled, he was done. Dad ended up carrying him. Needless, to say we quickly found a tree, sawed it down, and hauled it back to the car. Rumor has it that Santa will be bringing Alex a fancy toddler sled for Christmas. I sure hope so. I think he would have been fine had he had a back on the sled.

Today we are going to decorate the tree. I still have some baking to do and all the presents to wrap. This seems like a perfect day to do these things. One glance outside will definitely get you in the Christmas Spirit! Oh, Paul has just informed me that snow is piled up between our front door and storm door. He is now shoveling the entry way in our house!!!! Ho, Ho, Ho!