Daycare was closed today for an inservice day - the school district was closed for that inservice training, so the daycare followed suit. It wasn't our Friday off, but I needed to burn a vacation day anyhow, so I got to hang out with the kids all day while Matt had to go to work. Poor Matt!
First things first, donuts for breakfast! We may or may not have been sending photos of the awesome donuts to Matt. We would have taken him one, but we picked the donut store (1 of 2 in town...) closer to home and we had a ton of errands to run. Next time, honey! Also, Henry is usually the one chowing down, but Thomas wolfed this donut down in record time and then asked for another one.
Why not, it's inservice day!!
When we were out running errands, we saw Christmas trees and decorations everywhere! This reminded Thomas that his momma still hadn't found his play tree like she had promised... Luckily, I had a pretty good idea of where it was hiding and we put it up right after we got home.
Nonni made this tree for him two years ago after I saw the idea online. She and Thomas cut out the tree and ornaments while I was at work and Thomas had a blast playing with it. Up until now, he was more interested in pulling ornaments off, but this year he was super excited about decorating the tree.
Unfortunately for Thomas, Henry is the age where pulling everything off is more exciting. Luckily, Thomas didn't seem too upset that his little brother kept running off with the ornaments. :)
And just like last time, Eliza is right in the middle of things even though she really doesn't want to be. She never learns! Or she just wants to be near her momma who happens to mostly be near the small people most of the day...
Also note, Matt hung the extra bookshelves! I think four of them looks much better than two. Thank you Pinterest for the Ikea spice rack / bookshelf idea!
On to more Christmas crafts! I bought this snowman activity set last year and Matt, Thomas & I each made one (or more). I don't have any photos of them, but I will try to find them - there was even a zombie snowman! This year mine was similar to last year, Thomas was trying to match his exactly to the photo on the box and Henry's didn't get much more decorated than what it currently is. It actually got undecorated by Thomas and I think only the eye was left. Oh well...
I gave Thomas his letters to put on the snowman and he dutifully decorated it. He just got a little mixed up on the order... But look how proud he is of his creation!
When they went down for a nap, I made cookies for us to decorate this afternoon. We ran out of time this morning and I figured it would be more efficient to bake them while they snoozed. They didn't seem to mind that I started without them since it was decorating time as soon as they got up! (Henry missed the memo on the fact we were decorating the cookies and decided to just start eating them...)
I finally got him to stop eating his cookies and told him we were going to use the icing and the candies to decorate them. I thought he was on board and went over to get pictures of Thomas. Henry proceeded to just eat the candies out of the bowl.
As a side note - this is why all of the cookies I share with people are not the same ones decorated by the boys. I love you all too much to share so many germs...
Henry finally decided to add icing! You can see he tried to put sprinkles on the bare cookie and his brother told him he was doing it wrong. Also, I love the expression on his face - he is concentrating hard on that green icing!
Thomas was having a blast pouring waaaay too much icing on his cookies. Apparently I was watching Henry very closely and my oldest took advantage of that.
Ugh, what a sticky, sticky mess! And how did he manage to make gray? This boy excels at making gray no matter what colors I give him. It's like he has a genetic predisposition to the color.
Wait...
Maybe he got that from me...?
Once I took all the cookies away to dry, Henry was more than happy to entertain himself by pouring the sprinkles and candies from one tiny bowl to another. He probably thought he was "cooking"!
Speaking of sprinkles. This is normal, right? Everyone has a giant box of sprinkles in their cupboard? Please tell me it's not just me...
My cookies! These are the cookies for sharing! Ok, well not these *particular* ones. I did take a dozen over to a friend's house and the plan was to take the remainder to work. But we *may* have eaten them all. In my defense, there was a moose and a bear and a deer and Texas (always at least one!) and dancing gingerbread men! How am I supposed to resist??
But I did my decorating all alone... Henry was in bed snoozing and the other two were at Thomas' first hockey game! Since he seems interested in playing, Matt decided to take him to a game. It was a late night for him, but between the hockey and the stadium food, he had a blast!
The game was over about 2 hours after his usual bedtime and even then he didn't want to leave! A super nice lady even gave him one of the practice hockey pucks. He was grinning from ear to ear when he got home - he's definitely turning into a true Alaskan!
But don't worry, Henry didn't feel too left out. He helped me do the cookie delivery (mostly to distract him about big brother going somewhere with dada), then I let him pick what he wanted for dinner. Pizza and breadsticks! That and a little alone time with momma made him a happy camper.
What a fun day this inservice turned out to be! And it's only the start of a fun-filled weekend! :)