Gingerbread Village

What's better than a gingerbread house?  A gingerbread village!

Bed Bath and Beyond has gingerbread village kits ($10 before Christmas and $5 after).

Each kit has 5 small houses and all the icing and toppings, so the kids can each do their own house (or two, or three).  

It has become an after-Christmas tradition for us.

Gingerbread Kits (Or, Cheap, Yummy Fun)

For the past few years, we have been buying ginger bread house kits during the after-season sales.  Two years ago we found them at Kroger for $1 per house.  Last year, we found a kit with a whole gingerbread village (5 small houses) at Bed Bath and Beyond for $5 per kit. I advise calling before heading out to get one, but I do hope somebody has them for cheap because my kids love making them (and I am cheap).  

Cute kids.  Yummy houses.  That's about it.  

New Year's Tradition

We started this tradition a few years ago.  The idea came from an interview with Dr James Dobson, leader of  Focus on the Family.  Starting at the beginning of the new year, we take one or two Christmas cards each evening at dinner and pray specifically for each family.

If you send us a Christmas card, know we'll be praying for you one of these evenings coming up.  We are so blessed to have good friends and family to pray for!

Kid-Friendly New Year's Eve

We have developed a few tricks for celebrating NYE with our kids.

First of all, we celebrated the new year at 8pm.  I set one of the clocks ahead so it would "strike midnight" at our 8pm.  Guess I didn't see any reason why celebrating with the kids meant they had to be grumpy all the next day.

I also found a NYE craft online for the kids to make NYE clocks (using brads to secure the clock hands).  This will work even better as they get older.  As it was, I did most of the craft myself and they just did the coloring and minute lines.  Isaac was interesting in learning to use the clock to periodically update it with the "real" time. Abby wasn't, so I used her clock as our "goal clock" so Isaac would know what midnight looked like.

 At our "midnight," we watched a youtube video of last year's NY countdown and ball drop. 

Then we started our own celebration.

Here's Isaac filling his pockets with "bombs" at the "bomb shop."

I was trying to use different settings to capture the sparkler but it all went so fast, so this is all I got.

We got a $10 "Kid Pack" of fireworks.  

They were all really mild and noiseless, but I like this pic of Dad and Adel running away after lighting one.

Isaac in excited terror as the first firework goes off.

Abby collecting silly string into a ball.

Isaac finally settling in to the fireworks.

Their favorite was the colorful smoke one.