December Fun

I can't believe it is already December and Christmas is right around the corner.  We have been busy doing a lot of fun traditions to get us in the Christmas spirit.  We started the month of by decorating the Christmas tree.  The nice thing is that the kids are old enough now that they can do most of the decorating.  They love doing it too!

We have also made a few crafts like this cute nativity scene.  

No Christmas season would be complete without making Gingerbread Houses:

All of the houses turned out so good!  Not only did we use up a lot of candy, we also ate a lot of candy!  We are definitely swearing off sweets for a long time after Christmas.

Making Gingerbread Houses is something the kids look forward to each year.  They come up with the most creative ideas.

Another fun thing that happened this month was Colby got glasses.

I think he looks quite handsome in his glasses.  His eyesight is actually not that bad but the glasses help focus things.  His right eye is actually perfect and he can see 20/20 but his left eye is not so good.  When he closes his right eye, he cannot see very far with his left eye alone.  It is more like 20/70.  With both eyes he sees pretty good but with the one he can't see.  That being said, he technically only needs a monocle or one lens like they used in the olden days.  In his glasses the right eye is just glass and the left eye has a prescription lens.  He says the glasses brighten everything up and makes thing more clear.  They also help with his depth perception.

On the last day of school before Christmas break, I was able to help with the kids' Christmas parties at school.  I was so busy I didn't get any pictures...  First was Colby's class.  During his party, each kids made a candy sled and then we raced them down a ramp.  It was really fun to see the kids creativity and watch them get so excited to race.  Next I helped in Emily's class.  Here the kids play a bunch of games like LRC, a number risk game, and bingo.  They won a lot of prizes and ate way too many treats!  Finally, I went to Logan's class.  During his party I helped the kids make a cute snowman ornament.  I like helping in the kids' classrooms.  It has been a little harder to do this year because of Covid but I like to do it when I can.

On December 21st, we got to experience something very rare.  The planets Jupiter and Saturn came in line and made it look like one huge star.  It was called the "Christmas Star" or the "Star of Bethlehem!"

I did not take these pictures but we were able to see this star in the sky.  As we were walking around the neighborhood looking at the star, our neighbors, the Hyde's, invited us over to look at the Star through their telescope.  It was really cool to see the planets together.  We were even able to see the rings on Saturn!  According to scientists, the last time this happened was actually the new star that shone when Christ was born!  At that time Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars all came together to make that bright star.  It was pretty cool to see.

Now we are just preparing for Christmas and having a good time.