Gingerbread Houses Galore

We continued our gingerbread house decorating party this year.  It was a great time with some friendly competition.  The kids all loved participating this year and there were some great houses!  When we began talking about decorating our house with Samuel a few weeks ago he talked on and on about making a fire station (of course!).  He has given us his ideas for days and even made sure over and over that I made his house a fire station, not just a house.  He was creative and so proud of his house!

their house was frosty the snowman and even came with sweet girls singing...loved it!

The final product.  The Powell house fire station.

I just love seeing all of the kids admiring the houses.  Such a sweet moment!

The Carpenter's birdhouse won and LK was so proud! 

Samuel told me all about his house again this morning as I was making breakfast!  I am so proud of his creativity and excitement for things he loves!

And proof that Henry was a part of all of it...just tired of me taking pictures of him!  

Charlie in the Big Boy Bed

We attempted to transition Charlie into his big boy bed.  Some dear friends gave us this bed which was their son's growing up.  What a special treat and something our boys will treasure!  Charlie was excited to be in the big boy bed and climbed right in...that is until we started to walk out of the room and turn off the lights.  He FREAKED out and came running and crying out of the room.  We tried several times to put him back in bed but he wasn't having it.  We will keep trying, but he's staying in the crib...which means Henry will stay in the pack & play for a while longer!

Riding the Polar Express was one of our advent events.  It was FREEZING but we had a great time.

Christmas Performances

Samuel was a shepherd in the Christmas play at our church.  He was so funny waiving and saying hello to Charlie for the first few minutes as everyone was getting on the stage.  He did a great job singing this year and seemed to be happy to be a part of the show!

Charlie has been listening to the "manger songs" (as Samuel calls them) every day with us and was able to sing along with several of the songs.  When the kids would sing loudly he would cover his ears.  A few times I looked over and saw him covering Ryan's ears, what a sweet boy!

This was the best picture I got from Samuel's preschool performance.  He sang and did the hand motions to most of the songs...a giant step up from last year when he stood there like a deer in headlights!

Train Museum of Wilmington

Samuel really enjoys The Polar Express book and movie and has been asking to ride a train for several months now.  I knew he would love seeing the model trains and maybe even a chance to sit in a really train car.  We had a great time and it was really cool to see all of the model trains and towns the museum had created!

It was about 70 degrees, hence the shorts and short sleeves!  Gotta love living at the beach!

Salt Dough Ornaments & Cookies for the Fire Fighters

Two of our advent activities were making salt dough ornaments and baking Christmas cookies to take to the fire fighters.  The boys both made their handprints and then we baked the salt dough ornaments.  I will treasure these for years to come.  

If you know my boys at all you know they LOVE (and I feel like that is even an understatement) firemen and everything having to do with fire fighting.  I knew they would love baking cookies and taking them to the local fire department.  Samuel talked on and on about how excited the firemen would be when we got there and how they would think our cookies were so delicious.  He was beside himself as we drove there.  It was amazing how quiet and shy he actually was as we walked through the department looking and "riding/driving" the fire trucks.  

Tree Decorating

We had a great time decorating the tree.  Of course Ryan got all the lights on the tree and the bottom strand went out, so we had to go out the next day to get a new strand of lights-gotta love it!  Samuel and Charlie loved looking at each new ornament I unwrapped.  Charlie kept pointing to the new ones and saying "oooooooh pretty".  Samuel wanted to hear the story behind each ornament.  Ryan and I both have some very special ornaments from our childhood and then ornaments that belong to each of the boys.  I love Samuel's wonder and excitement of Christmas this year, it was so much fun!

Another Powell tradition is to watch the Peter, Paul & Mary Christmas special from 1984.  Ryan grew up watching this every year while decorating the tree.  My older brother kindly transferred it from VHS to a USB drive so we can watch it still!

Grandmommie gave us this angel when we got married.  It was on my grandparents tree for many years and now resides on the top of ours!  I love how all of our traditions have come together and the new traditions we have added to our Christmas season!