The LITTLE joys of Christmas!

What a week!!! We have had a BUSY weekend/week at the Hamann house! We spent all week/weekend finishing up Christmas shopping, wrapping gifts, baking treats, watching Christmas movies, doing Christmas crafts and so on! - - - oh the joys of Christmas!! hehe!

Here is a little recap of our Christmas preparation!

The SICKIES...

Thursday night Nick started not feeling well. He went up to bed and ended up spending the next hour or so vomiting. Poor thing! He even called in sick for work on Friday - which NEVER happens!!! Friday after some Christmas shopping I headed over to Nicole's to help get some cookies frosted for their Christmas party Saturday night. I had fun decorating and had good conversation... but poor Nicole wasn't feeling well! Then Friday night Parker vomited... and although he didn't feel well, I was sooooo proud that he made it to the toilet to get it out!!! - - way to go Parker! Needless to say, Parker and Daddy took our bed and Owen and I slept together in his bed... trying to reduce the spreading of those yucky germs! By Saturday morning both of my boys were feeling better... and Owen and I stayed healthy!!!

The PARTY...

Saturday we spent some time shopping again and then helped get set up for the Christmas Party. Nick took the boys out to shop for a gift for Toys for Tots and I help Olivia, Nicole and Brad get everything set up! The party was so much fun!!! Nicole & Brad and Olivia & Mike were the hosts and they did such a great job!!! They held the party at the Bucs Arena (lounge and on the ice)! We had pizza, salad and garlic bread for dinner and tons of treats to snack on!!! There was a table for cookie decorating for the kids and Santa stopped by for a visit!!! (Did you know Santa is quite the ice skater???) The kids got to ice skate too... it was so fun watching everyone. I didn't get out there... I have never tried it, but I will someday - - it looked fun!!! Nick took the boys out... and I got some pictures but they didn't turn out well... I will upload more when I sort through all of the ones Candi downloaded for me!! :) Enjoy!

Ruth and Josh... and RUTH!! :)

SANTA was there... and he skates!! Go Santa! :)

Ruth and Parker... and Brad and Cooper below!

Lily and Cooper holding on for dear life!! hehe... too cute!

Our daycare week...
We have been busy at daycare enjoying the season!! :) We LOVE making crafts and preparing for the holidays.. and this year was no different! We started out our celebration with many color pages of Santa, frosty, and so on! Then we moved on to watching some Christmas movies/shows (Shrek the Halls, Chipmunk Christmas, Elmo's Christmas Countdown, etc.), then we read many Christmas books (Thanks to Nina and Papa Hamann who are our suppliers!) and then on to the extra fun stuff... arts-n-crafts! Here is a look at our Christmas ornaments we made! (I got the recipe from my daycare friends!)

Recipe:
Cinnamon Christmas Ornaments
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup cinnamon
1 T glue

Mix together, roll out and cut out with cookie cutters. Let air dry for 24-48 hours and then decorate! (They smell YUMMY too!!!) - - yields about 10 small ornaments.

Then we had LOTS of baking!! The kids favorite job is cracking eggs of course! :) We made sugar cookies, peanut butter cookies with a hersheys kiss, Christmas pretzels with m&m's, pretzel sticks with almond bark, Honey Bunches of Oats "snowballs" (thanks "Cole" I love these!), puppy chow, a carmel chex mix, rice crispy bars and I am sure I am forgetting some!!! WOW... we were busy!!! Take a look...

After our baking craze, we went back to craft-making!!! We decided to decorate some cute little bags for Christmas. Here is a peek at those...










And finally... we made it to our daycare Christmas Party!!! I got each of the kids a package of Color Wonder markers with a book, a coloring book, and a SANTA Mr. Potato Head! They loved it and were excited to color!!! :)

Tomorrow after Nick is off work we plan to head back to I.G. for a family Christmas with Nick's extended family on Christmas Eve, Nick's immediate family on Christmas morning and noon and then on to my Mom's for Christmas afternoon/evening. Then back home on Friday to see what Santa left us here at home! :) We are excited to celebrate with everyone.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! :)