Keeping Busy During Christmas Break

If you are looking for things to do during Christmas vacation, my blog for girls features a lot of the easy crafts we've done the past few weeks. Some are edible, some have been used as gifts. I still have a couple more to post before Christmas. Most of them can be adapted to other holidays too.

Here are a few pictures of the kids' creations. To see how we made them, click the link on the right sidebar to go to my blog for girls or click HERE.

Not yet posted, but will be soon:

Breakfast with Santa

So much has been going on lately that I'm behind in blogging about it. And soon we will have a new family member to blog about as Jessica should deliver in the next two weeks. 

I've been teaching the kids how to play chess. Well, not really how to play because I don't play chess, but I'm teaching them how the pieces move and how to take off other pieces and put the king in check. I think it's a skill everyone should know.

The first Saturday in December we had breakfast with Santa. This is only the second year we've done it. The kids let me take pictures of them first.

The boys were ready first.

Some days everyone gets along, other days...

I bought tickets for everyone, but one child did some things that just couldn't be ignored or excused and put herself on the naughty list. 

A line forms to see Santa. Then all the kids are given a gift. Tickets are $7 each, and you get that much back in a gift. The gifts for girls is always some sort of make up, and last year it was child's play make up. Jasmine didn't want it, so I asked if she could get a boy toy, and they gave her a glow-in-the-dark basketball. They told me to just sign her up as a boy next time, so that's what I did this year. She got a water football, which you saw in the post called "Because Sometimes You Need a Road Trip 1"

Since I'd paid for everyone and one didn't go, I had an extra ticket so I collected her toy. This year they were giving out a lip gloss set to girls that was actually pretty nice, but I got a boy toy instead--a soccer ball. You can probably see it in the Road Trip post also.

After seeing Santa, there is a breakfast line. It has cereal, fruit, eggs, bacon and pancakes! I didn't take a picture of it, so you'll to look at us instead :)

There was a pretty good Santa this year. I should have had the kids go back up one at a time for photos since he was still there, and there was no one in line. Last year they hurried everyone through.

If  you haven't visited my other blogs, there are link at the top of the sidebar on the right. At this time there is a Books a Million gift card give away for teens on the teen blog at the end of the post about the best teen novels. There's also information about holiday blues. The parenting one has tips for keeping Christmas meaningful from author Kathi Macias and tips for women for fitness by Pam Farell and more. The blog for girls has a lot of easy crafts to make, some are even edible. Others will make nice teacher gifts.

Photo Shoot in the Park 2

Ty is very at home in a tree, but it took a little work to get Kaleb up there with him. The girls didn't want to try it.

Kaleb wasn't too sure about it at first.

 It was nice to see different combinations of kids interacting. This doesn't always happen.

 Jessica looks so young in this picture
.

Ty swinging Kaleb in the air. I didn't get a good picture in motion.

 They found a tree that was easier to climb. Jessica and Kayla didn't climb up with the others. Probably not a good idea for Jessica with being pregnant!

 I didn't climb up either, so Jessica took some photos of me on the ground.

 Brother and sister. Ty is older, but most people think Jessica is because of Ty's aspergers.

 They let me get a few nice ones together--then the typical brother-sister stuff started!

 And Jessica got bored.

So that was pretty much the end of photos, and I let everyone go play on the playground.

Here are a few photos from Jessica's camera:

Visit her photography blog HERE