Marker Monday - Gingerbread Houses with Kids

The kids and I decorated gingerbread houses last week. So much fun! They turned out so well too. I love doing art projects with my kids....probably more than they do!

And boy, all the Halloween candy I stashed in the freezer, plus a bag of mini marshmallows, really came in handy.

I wisened up this year too. Instead of relying on icing to hold the graham crackers together I hot glued everything together first. Thanks for that little tip follower Jester5. Six graham crackers total for each gingerbread house.

After a bit of a Yahoo temper tantrum when I refused to let her eat any more candy, she became a happy and willing helper for Yip. Yip was gracious too and allowed her to stick candy wherever she wanted. Those rare occasions when my kids get along really well is absolute heaven!

Yap deep in concentration on his creative masterpiece.

I really expected the boys to eat tons of candy as they worked but I was surprised. They were so intent on their work they barely ate any.

The gingerbread houses worked out so well that if I had the room I'd make more. As it is I'm running out of shelf space for the Christmas decorations I have out already.

You know you live in a small town.....

...when there is a 15 ft. Christmas tree in the middle of the busiest intersection on the town's main street. Wow, look at the blizzard!

No kidding! DR almost hit the tree on his way home the first night it was up!

Okay, this photo is a fake. There's no snow in Kansas; in fact the temps were in the low 60's yesterday. I added the snow because I miss it!

But there really is a 15 ft. tree on Main Street!

Merry Christmas from small town Kansas!

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever! (with not a lot of fuss)

I love church Christmas plays and pageants. Of course, maybe I like them so much because I'm not in charge of organizing and corraling a bunch of little kids in costumes! Christmas plays can get crazy! This year, at our church here in Kansas, they have a fabulous way of putting on a great pageant without a pulling your hair out fuss.

Monday after school a bunch of families met at a little farm out of town loaded with as many sheperds and angel costumes as we could dig up. I think there were about 15-20 kids, most of which were lower elementary and preschool ages.

First, all the kids dressed up as angels and then all the parents took pictures out in a the grassy yard.

Then some of the boy angels changed into sheperd costumes and the kids started acting out the Christmas story. Here the angels are waking up the sheperds. Yip laid down in a big bunch of sand burrs that covered his backside...poor kid!

Then three sheperds changed into Wise Men and more poses were struck and pictures were taken. (BTW, those Hogwarts robes did a great double duty as sheperds robes!)

Of course there were scenes with Mary, Joseph and a donkey and plenty more of the sheperds, angels and Wise Men.

Finally all the kids met in the barn for a very organized (yeah, right) photo session of the manger scene.

Once we got home all the parents sent all the digital photos to Sue who will organize this mess into a slide show for Sunday morning church service. With all the parents shooting photos it was neat to way to get tons of shots from different points of view in a short amount of time. Sue is also heading to a sheep farm to take some photos to add into the slide show later. This way the kids will also get to see themselves in the slide show.

I thought this was an awesome way to have a pageant, especially with little kids. This way of having the kids change clothes made it seem we had a lot more kids than we did. Although it took about an hour after school, I think it was much simpler than trying to get everyone happy and cooperative for twenty minutes on a Sunday morning.

Is your church braving the craziness of a Christmas pageant this year?