Christmas Prep

Christmas is coming!  And we've been doing our best to get ready.  Here are a few pictures of our Christmas preparations.  I hurt my lower back a few days before Thanksgiving and it was very slow healing.  It was several weeks before my back felt normal again.  Darn back issues.  I don't normally have back issues I just leaned way over to lift a basket laundry and pulled something.  So I wasn't at full capacity for the beginning of December.  On this day (above) John and Emma accompanied Scott and I to get a Christmas tree.  We ended up buying one from Home Depot.  John and Emma pose with a Grinch display at the store.

Scott putting our chosen tree on the top of the car.

And bringing it in the house

Undecorated tree in the background

Emma's magnet creation in the front

It took us a few days to get around to decorating

It was Grant's year to put on the star...next year John's turn

Scott tends to the trees water needs regularly

Tree with the star on

Emma with me at the craft store - getting a few Christmas things

Trying to make things Christmas-ish at the entry table

Decorating is not my strong suit

A couple weeks ago I started feeling sick.  Cold symptoms and a really sore throat.  When the painful sore throat hit I thought it might be strep, but then I started to feel a little better.  Then one afternoon I started rapidly feeling worse again so the next day I went to the doctor for a throat swab and I did have strep.  Luckily that meant I could take antibiotics and start feeling better but it took a little while.  I had wanted to make gingerbread houses for the kids but hadn't felt well and kept putting it off hoping I would feel better.  For the past several years we make gingerbread houses from scratch for each kid.  It's a lot of work but a fun tradition.

Finally we were able to make our houses.  Here is a gingerbread man decorated by Anna.  Her cookie decorating ambitions make me tired but look cute.

Gingerbread day is here!  I made two batches of thick royal icing and piped some out to assemble each house then I go back around to add more frosting for decorating.  It's a long and often messy process. I feel like the strep made my joints hurt - maybe that's not real and I'm just getting old - but while I was sick my hands were sore a lot and I had a lot of discomfort while trying to pipe out the thick royal icing.  Luckily after a few more days on the antibiotics by hands felt better.

Here we are assembling

The frosting was so thick it did a good job holding the houses together.  

We only had a few structural issues.

Everyone had their own decorating ideas.

Here are a bunch of house decorating pictures.

And here is a picture of Matthew at his Christmas band concert.  He plays the trumpet in the junior high beginner band and enjoys it.  A lot of friends from church and school are also in the band.

He's on the left in a suit and Santa hat.  More Christmas adventures to come.