Merry Christmas!

This is the first Christmas that we've spent a lot of money on the children, and I'm really excited about watching them open their gifts on Christmas morning. They rarely ask us for anything, and we don't buy them toys throughout the year, so I'm not overly worried about materialism.

We like to give the kids an opportunity to give of themselves to help others. So for the past few weeks we've been focused on selling cookies to buy toys for a local charity.

Jazzy and Drew take turns helping me mix the batter:

This year Drew was promoted to scooping cookies from the hot cookie sheet:

Then we package up the cookies and deliver them to friends and family:

Not one to be left out, little Isaiah even did his part:

All in all, we baked 28 dozen cookies! We made the last delivery on Saturday, purchased the gifts on Sunday and dropped them off yesterday. The kids were excited to find that the agency employees remembered us from last year.

We also got in a little culture this month. A couple of weeks ago, we went to see the play Madeline's Christmas:

And on Saturday, my husband's 35th birthday, we went to see The Nutcracker. He even stayed awake the entire time:

Then on Sunday, the kids sang with children's choir at church. We've blown the theory that homeschooled children are too sheltered!

The Christmas cards have been mailed, the gifts are wrapped and under the tree, I've finished my grocery shopping, and I'm picking up our smoked turkey tomorrow.

I'll be too busy in the kitchen to blog tomorrow, and on Christmas day I'll be stuffed full and sleepy. I'll see you some time next week.

Merry Christmas!