Thursday, December 14, 2006

12th day of Advent

Gingerbread houses!



Christina hosted mom's group at her house today, instead of our usual park setting. She made gingerbread house pieces and icing for all of us, and the rest of the moms brought various small candies to use for decorations.



Making gingerbread houses with lots of toddlers is quite the experience. :) Some of the older toddlers were quite interested and wanted to be very involved. Others (mine included) were much more interested in tasting the icing. And the m&ms. And the red hots. And the licorice. And the gumdrops. Jonathan actually decided he didn't like the candies...which was a good thing because he liked the icing a lot. Every time I used it to put pieces together or add a decoration, he needed a taste. Sometimes he needed two tastes. I gave up worrying about how much sugar he was consuming! :)

Our house fell apart at least three times in the course of building/decorating it. It was pretty warm today (only in southern California can you make candy houses outside in December!) and the icing was melting a bit. So when small toddler fingers pushed candies onto the roof, said roof was quite likely to collapse. It was so much fun, though, and we did manage to keep it together long enough to get a picture!

Once the kids lost interest in the houses, they went straight for the sandbox.







They were having so much fun!

We have such an amazing group of moms and kids. Sometimes I'll read in magazines about difficulties in mommy groups - differences of opinion on discipline, sharing, etc. And so often when you put lots of women together, you can get some yucky cattiness and such. But we just don't have any of that. All the women are warm, thoughtful, caring people. We work together well when toddlers refuse to share with each other. No one is offended if our methods of discipline differ slightly. Basically we love God and we love each other and we love our kids, and so our weekly meetings are wonderfully fun and relaxing and enjoyable. I always look forward to Thursdays.

My husband just informed me that it is getting late. As usual, he is correct. Every morning I ask him to make me go to bed on time, and every evening I ignore his advice and stay up late. :)

1 comment:

Ma Torg said...

That looks like a lot of fun! I should go pick some stuff up and do it with my kids.

I've been enjoying all your advent updates and wishing I had the energy to carry out (and start!) our traditions this year. We just seem to be sick all the time and I haven't left the house in a week! Time for some change!

I'm glad your mom's group works out so well. I've lucked out with a really great one too(after trying a really bad one). It is great when you can both watch your kids have fun with other kids and enjoy some socializing yourself. It is the highlight of our week too.