To get ready for Christmas we made ginger bread houses with graham crackers, smuggled for us from the UN commissary.
Daddy helped Elora make a fancy house with a big roof, which involved measuring angles and cutting various sized pieces.
While Mommy and Ollie opted for the “quick and easy” trailer park style house.
Ollie decorated a little, but spent most of his time eating the graham crackers and candy. Every time Oliver would put once piece of candy on, we’d cheer and he’d look at us funny than go back to munchin’.
Look how happy they are. A huge bowl of candy is all it takes…
Elora was very proud of her ginger bread house. We made use of all the various goodies and snacks we had sitting around the house, which is why it’s a hodge podge mess of candy.
The next night we went to our church Christmas party. It was snowing! Pushing the stroller through the snow was lots of fun. We need snow chains or snow tires…
When we got there, Oliver was happy to have lots of punch. He’d chug a whole cup and beg for more, again and again.
Normally Elora refuses to eat at a party because there is too much fun to be had. Fortunately, there were 3 huge trays of drumsticks, which is every kid’s best friend. She walked around most of the time, chowing down on chicken legs. She ate about 4 or 5, which is pretty impressive because it’s the first time she’d ever eaten or seen one.
Ollie with his little friend Charlotte. When he saw her, he ran up next to her and started talking to her. They had a lot of fun with the big snowman puppets.
The announced a special guest was coming, and Elora turned and said, “I really really want to meet the special guest, it’s Santa!” When it was her turn, she ran up to the stage and after Santa asked her a few times what she wanted for Christmas, she replied, “I want a toy.” Generic… an easy wish to fulfill. She’s been telling us ever since that she asked Santa for “a toy.”
We thought Ollie might be scared at first, but he kept trying to run up on stage. When it was his turn he went running and shrieking with joy from the other end of the room all the way up to the stage. The rest of the party had music, singing, and a strings concert. The kids really love music, so they were happy all night long.
Finally, it was time to go back home. Ollie and Elora held hands the whole way to the street car.
It was a COLD night. Karen was cleaning the snow of Ollie’s shoes here and he thought it was pretty funny. Chris was throwing snowballs at Karen’s back, and he also thought it was pretty funny.
After Ollie’s shoes were cleaned up, he made sure his coat was nice and shiny by licking up the snow from his sleeve (he loves cats).
