Thursday, December 22, 2011

Christmas Break, Graham Cracker Houses, and the 100 Point Club

Christmas Break for our family officially started yesterday...which means not only Firecracker has two weeks off from school...but so does my husband (since he's a teacher). 

Things started off yesterday during the day with Firecracker earning her 100-Point Club Award for the reading program at school.  Since most of the books she's read were a half-point each, that means she's read and tested on close to 200 books.  We're really proud of her for the work she's put in...and she's really proud of herself too because this is a huge accomplishment for a 1st grader.

...and it was pajama day at school.  We don't normally let her wear foot pajamas to school. :)



We kicked off the official start of Christmas Break by having 4 of her friends over to decorate graham cracker houses.  I'd thought about having kids over to decorate cookies, but just didn't want the mess of making cookies the day before AND decorating them with the kids.  Then Hubby suggested graham cracker houses, so there would be no baking required...He's a genius I tell you.

It worked out great.  I gave each girl a bag with frosting in it and a hole snipped in the corner and they all did a great job.  We had a few house collapses before they started in with the candy, but they were easily fixed.

Thankfully Little Brother and Sweet Pea BOTH decided to take a nap, and they slept through the girls making their houses.  They woke up right about the time the girls finished, so Hubby and I could give them more help without the girls in the way.

We built the houses for both the little ones.  Little Brother did an awesome job piping all his own frosting for the candy.

Sweet Pea showed Daddy where to put the dots of frosting and she added the candy...
...and boy was she thorough about it.

And to round out the random news...here is Firecracker singing in her Christmas concert last week...

...and this is how our house looked a couple days ago.  It actually looks even better now.  We'll have to take more pictures.  It's so fun to see it going up!  And I'm looking forward to having a craft space in the corner of my bedroom next year, so I can close the door to hide gifts...instead of working on the kitchen table where I can only work on gifts when all the kids are in bed.

Anyway...since the whole family is home for two weeks...I'll probably be blogging less.  Especially with the mad dash to get gifts ready for Christmas.  I am pretty proud of myself for just having finished quilt top #3 and it is AWESOME if I do say so myself.  Little Brother is going to love it...but no pictures yet. :)

3 comments:

  1. Hurray for Firecracker making the 100pt club! We used to decorate graham cracker houses with our friends at Christmas too, how fun :)

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  2. Congratulations Firecracker!! That is an impressive amount of reading. The graham cracker houses are awesome...good job to the older girls, Little Brother, and SweetPea! Oh, I am so excited for the progress on your new family home...

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  3. My gingerbread sucks. I've never thought to use graham crackers. Thanks so much for the idea!

    ~Natalie

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