December 2016

Here is a quick rundown of last month ....

The kids had a special presentation day at school where they shared their class projects.  Riley's class focused on art and Leighton's class worked on city planning and built their own city.  Leighton was in charge of the sports stadium, and he was SO proud to show me that he named it 'Rebecca Cakes and Bakes Stadium'.  What a sweet boy I have!

Dec 1st we started our Advent calendars.  Yes, plural!  The first is the wrapped book for each of the kids every night in December and the other is our little Santa with a fun activity for each day of the month.  We went to Bellaire Holiday in the Park again this year.  The kids had fun on the snow slide, had some hot chocolate, and we took a picture by the tree.

The next day I accompanied Leighton on a field trip to the Health Museum, which for some reason we'd not been to yet!  The kids loved everything there, but the highlight was the padded screaming room!  They could go in and scream and it would register how loud they were.  Now, I have ALWAYS said my kid is loud.  I can hear him on the playground no matter where he is, and everyone says you can always just hear your own kid's voice.  Nuh uh.  My kid is loud.  And this proved it.  Nobody beat him out of every kid in his grade that went in there!  I never was able to snap the picture right at the loudest he got, but if I remember correctly, he got it to 109.

Riley had her Kindergarten winter singing concert.  We got her a new fancy outfit!

We got our tree!

And Riley got to go to a ballet performance by the big girls are her dance studio.  Another opportunity to wear her fancy dress and shoes!

And then it was her turn for her winter ballet performance.

We decorated the tree.

We went to see Santa at the library.  First visit to Santa since the one time when Leighton braved it when he was 4.  Riley had never been on the lap of the big man!

Leighton had his winter orchestra performance.

Riley stand with Leighton for a picture ....

Riley get closer!  It's not like he's going to bite you ...

The kids had their class parties.

I worked on another Icing Smiles cake.  I will hopefully have it posted to Rebecca Cakes and Bakes soon ... as soon as I get this blog updated, I can move onto that one!!!  Lots of new stuff to share!!

The kids did a cooking class at HEB.  They made a couple dishes while Roy and I had a fun grocery shopping date on our own!  And then they decorated gingerbread houses.

We had a winter dinner party at Mikkel and Pauline's like last year.  Their boys requested everyone bring Pokemon cards to play and their instruments to have a concert for the parents!

The kids made cookies with me.  They decorated their own sugar cookies and cut them out.  But they also did loads of measuring and rolling and helping with the other treats. I was so impressed and thankful!

I took the kids to a free holiday train show at a church.  We'd never been before, but it was wonderful!  The kids loved it!  It was way bigger than I expected.  There were 'bubble windows' for the kids to go into, the trains went overhead, there were many different villages and 'eras' to see.  There was also a little scavenger hunt and they got a candy cane from an engineer if they found all 9 items.  We will definitely go back again!

And then it was Christmas Eve!

And Christmas Day!

I took the kids to the mall for some errands one day:

We finally had the chance to do Leighton's belated birthday party!

And we went to the Children's Museum to use up a coupon we had.

And that was it for December AND 2016!!!