Fa La La La La...and a little non-Christmas stuff...

This year I coached a lego team for second graders through Justin's school. It was a really fun and great experience working with Justin and his teammates on solving a problem using Legos. This week was the finale event at the school, the kids met with Judges and explained their project and also got to see how the other teams solved the same problem in a different way. The FIRST team was also at the event showing off their robotics problem. Justin was FASCINATED by the FIRST team. He spent well over a half hour over at their exhibit, asking questions and watching their robot. He told me that he HAS to be on a team like that when he is old enough. Its not surprising that Justin takes an interest in all things engineering and robotic. He is such a "math kid" and loves building, tinkering and exploring with his hands. This has been a wonderful program and experience for him and I!

Our team were the Angry Germs. Our problem this year was showing how to keep food safe to eat. The kids designed the shirt and the poster as well as the Lego project.
Justin got sick this past weekend. Turns out he caught strep throat and was feeling much better on Tuesday after we got him antibiotics. He missed school for two days though and spent the majority of the early week looking like this:
My friend hosted a Christmas party at her house this past weekend that I brought the younger two boys to. G and Justin opted for a movie instead because the crowd was mostly under 6 age and Justin was a bit too old. The younger boys had a blast at the party, which was complete with a visit from the big man himself, Mr. C.

Evan enjoyed the cookie decorating, the frosting on his face tells me this.
Nathan did some winter themed coloring.
Both boys sat with and talked to Mr. Claus and got a little present from him.

And everyone enjoyed some stories around the fire place read by my friend.

Our elf Jevin has been having quite the adventures this season! Today Nathan found him hanging from the front door chain! Silly elf. Christmas cards have been coming in from friends and family and we happily hand them on the inside of our front door to enjoy for the month.
We finally got our tree decorated! It has been up with the lights on for over a week but we werent able to find a relaxing time to decorate it until this weekend, while the baby napped. We decided to place the tree in the entry way for one more year. Just until Nathan is old enough to know better than to pull every single ornament off it or topple it over. Im hoping next year will be the year that we finally bring the tree in the house! In the meantime, the older boys enjoyed decorating it and looking at all their favorite ornaments, its fun for them because now they can remember the ornaments from year to year and the stories behind each. Justin's height is coming in handy now! He can reach much higher this year to place the breakable ornaments on the top section of the tree!



My mom's group hosted the annual gingerbread house decorating party. Always a fantastic time with a wonderful group of ladies. Its fun to get out for the night and do something mindless while hanging out with friends. My house is the first row, second from the left (looking at the picture) with the "stone" front.