This morning, Hubs and I woke the kids by singing “rise and shine”. They were both sounds asleep. At first, Schäfer rose his hands and started clapping along. Then he popped up and was pure sunshine. He was smiling and clapping. Then he asked us to carry him.
Meanwhile, Sianna never moved. When she finally turned over, she moaned and remained groggy until I delivered her to the breakfast table.
After breakfast, Sianna put on her outfit and said, “I like it.” Then, Sianna handed me her hairbow bag and said “I want Christmas tree.”
I love all of her expressions! (Thank you Aunt Gloria for the shirt!)
Since I had two Christmas tree hairbows, I thought I’d try to get a photo of the girls together.
Maybe next year!
Today we hosted 3 Christmas parties. We thought we had three parties today, but then Hubs thought he was mistaken, since our first batch of guests showed up an hour late.
Hubs thought that he must’ve scheduled them for next Friday instead. Just as we were about to head out the door to go for a walk, our guests arrived. So let the parties begin!
Just as soon as we have the furniture arranged for the party, Selah makes a mad dash to the Christmas tree.
The Cookie Factory is open for business!
Party #1
I have been especially thankful for my larger oven with a double rack. The bottom rack bakes the bottom, the top rack bakes the top – after a little switch around we’ve got twice as many cookies as ever before!
I always limit the kids cookie intake before the party begins. But as you can see, the kids are ready for cookies just as soon as they come out of the oven.
Little cutie!
These cookie cutters get a lot of attention during the Christmas season!
Party #2
Love using symbols to explain Christmas.
After party #2, Schäfer kept watching one of our Christmas movies.
Love seeing him and Raffe snuggled under a blanket.
During party #2, someone asked Schäfer Raffe’s name. Instead of calling him “giraffe” in Chinese, Schäfer gave Raffe a Chinese name: Zhang Jing Lu (张颈鹿), which is a play on the Chinese word for giraffe: Chang Jing Lu (长颈鹿). Zhang is one of the most common Chinese surnames. I don’t know if Schäfer intended for it to be this, but if so it was very clever!
Party #3 began in the evening.
Evening parties are always the most fun.
Evening parties can also create new spaces for feeding supper to my littlest ones.
At this point, we were tired of sugar cookies so we also made some gingerbread dough. Gingerbread is our family favorite, but after a nation-wide taste test (by a couple of dozen people in our living room) sugar cookies were the preferred cookie of young, Chinese urbanites.
Selah’s first cookie. (My gingerbread recipe is egg free.)
Yep, she loved it!
More please!
During party #3, Schäfer and Sianna asked if they could split a candy cane instead of eating 3 cookies. I agreed because the kids have been doing their best.
Christmas parties are not difficult. They are easy, but keeping three kids in line, while directing the cookie making, powerpoint projecting, white elephant swapping, picture taking and carol singing can be a challenge.
For the most part the kids were well behaved. There was a bit of drama when Schäfer definitely understands the gift exchange game, but that doesn’t slow his disappointment when he opens a picture frame instead of a firetruck.
We’ve added another element into our parties: home movies. We learned that our guests love seeing movies of snowy North Idaho.
Whew. Three parties. Good times, but now we’re ready for sleep.
