Traditions

Due to my tardiness of getting organized, we are currently celebrating the "16" days until Christmas. Under each number is an activity we can do together as a family. It has so far been a lot of fun.

One of my favorite traditions that we celebrate is the Christmas Pickle. After all the presents are opened we hang the last ornament on the tree, the pickle (it's a cute little pickle ornament). The person who is, "most observant," and finds the pickle wins a prize.

One of our family activities was to make gingerbread houses and then decorate them. This took us three days to do. Daniel gets home from work so late that we don't have time to do a whole lot in the evenings after dinner. The first night we made the gingerbread dough, the second night we baked it, and the third night we assembled our houses and decorated them.

Isaiah actually decided to make a gingerbread man/soldier. I think his decorating technique was to cover every spot on his cookie with candy.

Daniel's, of course, ended up looking like the house straight out of the book, "Hansel and Gretel."

I messed up on my gingerbread so I ended up making this crazy cathedral looking house. It's a little creepy looking to me.
I was actually pretty tired by this time and ready to be done. I had a little Christmas "bah hum bug" that night.

Every year here in Corvallis the Pepsi plant puts on an amazing light display with music. I love how excited Isaiah still gets to do these kinds of things.

He was amazed by the huge piles of crushed aluminum cans.

When we drove by he asked me to stop. He just looked at it all in awe. He said to me, "Wow mom that is a lot of pop cans! We could make a giant Tin Man with all that!" I love his imagination and enthusiasm.

We had a full moon that night and Isaiah snapped this shot.

This picture came out blurry because the beavers were moving but it's my favorite display. It's a bunch of Benny the Beavers each representing a different sport.

There's even a TMNT out there!

Isaiah wanted to jump out and sing with the choir and then got embarrassed when I took a picture.

I love this time of year that we get to spend more time with family. The only problem is time just flies by.