The Christmas Season

 

I loved that Thanksgiving was so early this year, because that meant we had an extra week added to the Christmas season!  Besides all the fun stuff we did for Cooper, here are some other things we did.

Mom and Dad celebrated their ninth anniversary on 12/12/12 and decided to do something special.  They spent the night without us at Salish Lodge.  I wish I could post some pics of that, but Blogger is being lame again and won't give me the option of uploading pics!  Grrrr!!!

Anyway, my Aunt Kari flew up from AZ to watch me and Syd.  It was soooo fun.  One thing we did while she was here was make Gingerbread houses.

I made sure to make a blueprint for my house before I got started so I would know exactly what to do.

Aunt Kari showed us how to squeeze frosting from a plastic baggie to decorate the house.

I figured out how to squeeze it into my mouth all by myself.

 

The next morning Twinkly was waiting in the kitchen for us with elf sized pancakes!  How cool is that!  Elf pancakes are sooooo yummy!

Mom and I made donut snowmen as treats for my Kindergarten class even though we didn't have a class party.  (Bah, humbug.)

There were tons of boxes arriving in the mail with presents in them, so I decided to make one of the boxes into a space ship.  I put a picture of my family inside and drew the controls in the cockpit.  Mom helped me design the wings and cut out the windows.  It was a pretty tight fit.

And the next morning, we found that Twinkly had taken my ship for a joy ride!

 Grandma and Grandpa de Jong flew up from CA to be here for Christmas and my cousins came over on Christmas Eve.  We had so much fun playing minute-to-win-it games.  In the first game, we had to put vaseline on our nose and hold a string in our mouth with a red pom pom on the end.  Then we had to get the pom pom to stick to our nose (like Rudolph) without using our hands!  It was tough (and really funny to watch) but I did it!

 

 

I didn't get a pic of Grandpa with the ball on his nose, but he got in there in about 5 seconds!

Another game was the nutstacker where we had to stack nuts on top of each other with a candy cane.  Dad had six stacked, but they all fell right before the minute was up.

Grandpa and James had to blow on Christmas cards until they hung off a table by one side.

Some of us had to get an ornament from one side of the room into a square on the other side.

Grandma and Ted had to put a gingerbread man on their forehead and get it into their mouth without using their hands.  That was hilarious!

And then there was the grand finale: Jingle in the Trunk.  Uncle Ted sure can shake it!

 

After a few other games, the kids all exchanged presents.

After everyone went home, Syd and I opened our Christmas Eve pajamas.

And then it was time to say good-bye to Twinkly.  Christmas Eve is the only night we are allowed to touch him since he's leaving until next year.  We both gave him a hug and a kiss.

I sure miss that little guy.  Can't wait to see him next year!

And believe it or not, I was so exhausted from all the fun we had that day, that I fell right asleep and STAYED asleep until 6am.  Mom and Dad said I had to wait until that time to come out of my room.  And since I love following rules, did just that.  And it was totally worth it because Christmas morning was awesome!  I'll fill you in next time.