Wrapping up the holiday season....

'Twas the week before Christmas and all through the house the two children were playing and learning their math.
Sam has always enjoyed working in his "school" workbooks, but lately he has really been into it. Almost daily he tells me he wants to do "school" and we will spend some time, as much as a couple hours, working on handwriting, math, reading, etc. Today while at Publix, Sam found a free workbook to bring home. There was a page with some addition/subtraction on it, so we did a little cheerio math. He did a great job and really had fun.

Of course there is no school this week, so instead we've filled our time with lots of holiday preparations. Sam has thoroughly enjoyed the Christmas season this year, as have the rest of us. It has been so much fun listening to Christmas music with Sam as he has been learning all the words and singing along. The music is one of my favorite parts of the season and it's so great that he's enjoying it too. He has been so, so excited as Christmas has drawn near, asking me almost daily "is Christmas tomorrow?" I think I've finally convinced him that Santa is indeed real, once I conceded that, yes, the mall Santa is only in a costume. Once I admitted that, he seemed more willing to believe that there is a real Santa who doesn't want to be seen. We have done a lot of gift wrapping, not because I have bought a lot of gifts, but because my mom has and I have always loved to wrap the gifts for her. Sam loves to help; he enjoys choosing the gift tag for each present and taping the gift up. He even tried to write the names on the tags. Wrapping definitely went much slower with his help, but it was time well spent.


On Wednesday we took a trip to the children's museum. I didn't bring my camera, shame on me. It was a fun day spent with friends, and Natey and Sam had a blast. Man I wish I had some pictures. I'm happy to report that there were no potty accidents on this trip and everyone went home happy.


On Tuesday evening we finally got around to making our gingerbread house. Sam, of course, was more interested in eating the gingerbread house than actually building it...or more particularly eating the candies.

Natey gave Sam a run for his money, though. He acted like a little puppy (which is actually pretty normal), scampering around on the floor after any tasty morsel that he heard hit the floor. Yeah, I know it sounds terrible, but I long ago came to the realization that I cannot stop that child from eating anything, anywhere. So, having him eat off of my relatively clean floor is the least of my concerns. But, the things that Natey has eaten and my calls to poison control are a blog post of their own...

Well that just about sums up our final week of the Christmas season. But do stay tuned because tomorrow kicks off the final Christmas festivities. Dun Dun Dunnnnn:-)