The End of the Holidays

I had to send my computer away to be fixed, and so when I finally downloaded the most recent set of photos from my camera, I found all kinds of fun things.

I completely stole this next idea from Natalie and Noah's preschool homework.  Amelia likes to cut, sort and tape, and Ben likes to make graphs, so this was the perfect project for them to work on together.  They categorized and graphed all the stamps we received on our Christmas cards (or at least the ones we received after December 15th).

The most popular stamp was the Madonna & Child (second from the left), followed by the ornament stamps.  Grandpa's very random collection of stamps didn't have any matches, so they decided it would be best to keep them all together in their own separate category.  Up until we received Grandpa's stamps, which included a $0.03 1955 "First of the Land Grant Colleges" and a $0.03 1938 "Landing of the Swedes and Finns", the most random one was John & Erin's center pivot irrigation stamp.  Amelia always has fun working on projects with Daddy.

I finally let the girls break into their gingerbread houses after we got home from our various Christmas travels.  Amelia tried to break the entire house down at once by pounding on the ridge line of the roof.  Unfortunately, she didn't have enough upper body strength to do much damage, so she had to ask Daddy to step in.  Daddy took the house down in one blow!

Megan had a different strategy; she used the hammer to try to break off individual pieces of candy, which she would then sneak into her mouth when she figured I wasn't paying attention.  

 Amelia ate all the candy containing gingerbread house pieces within the first 10 days, then realized that Megan still had lots of candy left on her house.  I wonder if she'll remember that when she decorates her house next Christmas?  And no, I did not let them eat the whole house; I ended up throwing most of it away when I decided they'd had plenty of candy.