Christmas Lights, Paper Trees, and Christmas Lunch

We went out to look at Christmas lights.  

Elias fell asleep before we got very far. 

I loved this three-story Christmas tree.  Awesomely creative.

The neighborhood we drove through was very fancy and they knew how to do it up right.

 Adding some ornaments to his paper Christmas tree.

Rolling the ends to make it beautiful.

All done.

It also works quite nicely as a hat.

The finished product.  

For one of our "activities" we had a special Christmas lunch.

Albert enjoyed his Christmas scraps.

Hey look, my sandwich is snowman.

Christmas Cards and the First Grilled Cheese

We just got back from our Christmas trip and have a lot to catch up on.  First we have to finish up our Advent activities.  Let's get started.

We made some Christmas cards.

The kids were able to use paints which is always a big hit with this crew.

"Hmmm...which color should I pick next."

Dip.

Then, after they dried, everyone wrote their names. Pretty nice, eh?

This was one of the finished products.  They made Christmas lights strands out of finger prints.

Unrelated but equally awesome, Asher got to try his very first grilled cheese sandwich.  

I think it was a hit!

Albert got to try his first grilled cheese as well.  Mmmm...cheese.

Caramel Corn and Ornaments

Another one of our Advent activities was making caramel corn.  

All mixed up and ready for the oven.  I didn't have corn syrup (I had a bad experience with corn syrup and an ant invasion once and now I'm not fond of having it in the house) so I swapped in honey and it actually worked out.  Yay for improvising!

Super crunchy!

Addilyn likes to be dramatic in eating (or she was posing for me: thanks, girlie!).

Elias definitely liked it.  Asher ate and enjoyed some too; unfortunately he was too squiggly and came out blurry in all my pictures.

The next night we enjoyed some more caramel corn while watching A Charlie Brown Christmas.  You have to love the classics.

After that we made some bead ornaments.  

Basically, we took all bunch of those perler beads that you iron together to make shapes and just filled cookie cutters and then baked them.

They turned out pretty good.  I forgot about putting a string or wire through so we could hang them.  

That's okay though.  It gave me an excuse to get out a pair of pliers and play with fire a bit.  I ended up just getting some wire really hot and jamming it through the tops.  Problem solved.

So here's our decorated tree, all finished.  Not too shabby, right?

Albert's Birthday

Here's the rundown of Albert's birthday.  This was during his first birthday song of the day (and his life!).

Breakfast time.

Silly face.

Munch.

Time to get measured. 

Surprisingly enough, he's the tallest of them all at this age.  Who knew?

Lunch time.

Mmmm...pumpkin bread.

After dinner it was time for his birthday cupcake.  "Um, Daddy, what's with the stick of fire?"

"Oooo, I want to touch it."

I love his look of concern here. "Daddy, why are you taking that away?"

Mmmm...frosting.

Munch.

Double apple cupcake with cinnamon buttercream frosting.  

Addilyn diving into her cupcake. (Asher reclining after having devoured his own.)

A very frustrated Daddy sitting with a very sad Elias.  Elias decided not to eat his dinner so he didn't get a cupcake.  Bummer.

Albert and the cupcake carnage.

Time to open presents.  "Um, what do I do with this?"

A happy baby and his Snoopy.

The ball popper!  

"Ooooo."

"Look what this does!"

Bite!
And a good time was had by all.  Even Elias...who eventually ate some of his dinner and got a little bit of a cupcake.
Yesterday we went for Albert's one-year doctor's appointment.  He measured 31 inches and weighed 23 lb, 9 oz.  That puts him in the 90th percentile for height and 50th for weight.  I don't remember his head circumference but I do know that it is off the charts.  I mean WAY off the charts.  The doctor had to come in and remeasure just to make sure that the nurse had got it right the first time.