The week before Christmas

We watched The Grinch, as always, and I paused the screen at the funny part where the dog leaps onto the Grinch's sleigh because he thinks he gets to ride on it, as always. And the kids laughed.

We made our own snow globes from a kit I bought at an art store. The idea was to do it on some quiet evening or weekend day, but instead we did it in the hour before gymnastics for Kate and Winter Clinic for Jack. They both wanted to make the reindeer one but Jack very generously let Kate do it. He made the snowman. They did a really nice job of it, better than I thought possible. Jack mixed blue and yellow clay to make a green tree, plus a blue penguin. Kate made a red and white candy cane arch. We filled them with sprinkles and water and it snowed in them.

Today, the kids made gingerbread houses at an after school activity. Jack's gingerbread people had funny little outfits made out of icing. Might have been underwear. On the roof he wrote his nickname, I think, "Jickety." Kate went very heavy on the icing. And she might have been eating some when I showed up.

We came home and Jack finished a Secret Santa project he had dreamed up. It was a board game set in a hockey rink, with little hockey players and an aluminum foil ice and cards he had made. Altogether he probably spent 4-5 hours on it this week. Impressive. Kate helped me make a pizza., rolling out the dough and going very heavy on the cheese. She is not as keen on sauce, so it had a lot of cheese.

We ate pizza together, listened to Mariah Carey Christmas songs, then I cracked open the mini chocolate Santas for a special treat. We watched some lame Christmas special on Netflix, because we wanted to save the good ones for when Emily was home (she had a work holiday dinner). But the kids enjoyed it. Got Kate showered, watched some football with Jack, and they went to bed. and I came downstairs to clean up pizza, write this blog, and realize Christmas is just a week away.