Preparing for Christmas

This weekend we've begun our Christmas decorating. It started out with Emma's homework. For Thanksgiving break she needed to decorate a paper Christmas tree her teacher provided. She, Abby and I worked on it last night (last minute, of course) and I think it turned out pretty freakin' awesome. We glued individual pieces of rice along a continual line for the lights, the girls used finger paints to create the ornament balls. We also accented it with glitter glue. It was really fun and I forgot to get a picture of it, darn it!

Today I spent hours rearranging furniture, vacuuming, and decorating our living room. For Family Home Evening we decorated the tree. Lesson #1: When kids decorate, don't hope for a professional outcome and you'll find it a lot easier to relax and enjoy the moment! It was very nice and we put on our cowboy Flying W Wranglers Christmas cd for background music. Doing FHE on the nights Josh works is tricky, so we actually began about 4:00 this afternoon.

We are currently watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas and the kids are loving it. These are the reasons I love Christmas!! Emma was so happy to have spent such a lovely afternoon that she willingly ate her dinner, which is a HUGE shocker! Who says miracles don't happen?


On another note, here are some Emma-isms as of late:

Last night Josh was talking about Roman numerals and realized that the subject was probably a little beyond the girls. He said to them, "You girls probably don't know Roman numerals, huh?" Emma said, "I don't even know who he is!" Josh and I began to try to stifle our chuckles, but she saw us and quickly added, "...or her."

Tonight Emma kept referring to December 22 as "December twenty-twoth." I corrected her and immediately she said it wrong again. It took her a while to remember "second" and not "two-th."


One last funny moment:

Last week my Primary class (the kids at church) was in charge of Sharing Time (a mini-lesson for all the kids to participate in). We talked about talents and had enough time to go to each kid individually and ask them what their talent is. I got to one boy who is 6 and a little hard to understand sometimes. I asked him what his talent is and he answered with, "Farts." I tried not to laugh as I looked at his teacher for a little help. She understood that I misunderstood and told me, "His talent is building forts." Oh! FORTS! Yes, I was sure that he was very good at building forts.