Twelve Days of Chritmas

Since we will only be at home for about 10 more days until we head for Utah, I have made the decision NOT to decorate. I feel absolutely horrible about it, but after debating literally all night, I think it will be okay not to. However, since I'm not decorating, I am going to do a little something special each day to make it feel like Christmas.

Yesterday I took the boys to the mall to see Santa. I needed to run a few errands before so I told Braden that he could only see Santa if he was GOOD. This worked at first but it didn't take long before he was NAUGHTY! I was so upset, because I really wanted to do this for him. In the end, I gave in and took him to see Santa anyway. But when we got there, Braden started crying and yelling that he didn't want to see Santa. As it turns out he was afraid of Santa, maybe that's why he decided he could be naughty. I'm going to try taking him on a better day and see if I can get a picture of the boys on Santa's knee.

For our activity today I had Braden help me make some salt dough. We kneaded it, colored it, rolled it out, cut out shapes, turned our shapes into Christmas ornaments and baked them in the microwave. Can I say "little house fire?!" I left Santa in the microwave too long and he started on fire, whoops! I baked the rest including another Santa in the oven and they surprisingly turned out really cute. I had a really fun time doing this with the boys; yes, Carter helped too. By the end I think there was more dough on the floor than anywhere else, mostly due to Carter, but it really was a blast! I might have to do this again every year as a family tradition!