Last night E helped me make gingerbread dough for a gingerbread house. She is such a hard-working little helper for a three-year-old. 
She rolled out dough for little gingerbread men until there was no dough left. Here I am with E and F! 
Today I banned video games for the younger kids for the entire day. This meant I had to make sure they had something to do all day long to keep chaos from ensuing. After schoolwork (yes, I am making them do schoolwork during Christmas vacation-its not like their school is hard), I broke out the candy canes and let S hang them on the Christmas tree. 
Little F found that they were a fun to pull off the tree and chew, so E and S rehung them out of the baby's reach. 
I also had a craft that I had planned on doing at Twin Firs to keep the kids from driving Grandad bonkers. This morning, to keep the kids from driving Daddy bonkers, we painted clear glass ornaments with glitter glue...
...which made a horrible mess and I got glitter glue all over the sleeve of my robe. And I let the kids paint their own ornaments and they are ugly (except A's)!!! But I love them because I am their mother and I can't help it. But the mess didn't bother me at all. That mess was only the beginning...And finally, we assembled the gingerbread house that I cut out last night. Now, this is no pre-cut kit from China! I used a pizza cutter and a ruler and made my own house pieces! There is flour all over the misaligned walls and roof, but the whole thing was made with love and a sense of adventure by me! And here we are gluing the candy on with frosting... and using Christmas candy corn as teeth... which was my idea...
...because I am a goofball and I can't help it. And yes, E is wearing a halloween shirt. And you can't see that she has three braids in her hair, but she does because she is three years old. And the final product...
