Sticky Kiddos & a New Year

Happy New Year!  The flu has come into our home, leaving a couple of us miserable.  But we had a wonderful Christmas and the girls have had a lot of fun at home. We drank hot cocoa, had fires, told & read stories, watched movies, & played with new toys and games. And we did the most coveted activity of all: the construction of gingerbread houses.   I love to do gingerbread houses with the kiddos. The asked me every. single. day. of break if we could make them.  We just break out graham crackers, frosting and leftover Halloween candies and we're in business.   It's funny to watch the methodology of each one: Luciana is fast but messy. Her house collapsed in 10 seconds, but she kept on adding frosting and licking the knife, leaving her clothes and face absolutely covered in goo.




But even covered in sticky frosting, she's just adorable. Genevieve is a careful architect. She thoughtfully chose candies and perfect placement for each. Definitely an oldest child.


Sage loves color and crazy shapes. The more candy stuck to the house, the better.



And she dumped a box of Nerds on for good measure.   It's never convenient for me to break out a bunch of candy and frosting and let the kids go to town.  There's the mess left on the table, the floor and the mess on each girl which I am responsible for. Plus all the sugar. But looking at these photos today reminds me that I have to just (in the words of Frozen, which is now completely infiltrated my home) let it go and let them have fun with the mess.  They even helped clean up and wipe the table afterwards.  Not well, mind you, but they did wipe it.   I really enjoyed the Christmas break with the girls.  Now that they're getting older, it makes these long breaks easier because they actually help around the house (occasionally).  And Marielle is thrilled to have her big sisters around to play with all day.   Now I hope to get the blasted flu out of the house before Christmas break ends...