Having Fun with SNOW

We had a wonderful Christmas!! We had tons of fun getting in the holiday spirit and Cody’s school Christmas Party was on thursday. That was just about the CUTEST thing I have ever seen. They had an amazing chapel, the kids sang us Christmas songs, we had a FEAST with everyone’s favorite holiday dishes and then the kids had a book exchange. It ended with the kids giving us presents they have been making for us over the month. It was ADORABLE! I am more and more impressed with his school and I loved that the day was mostly about Jesus with a much less emphasis on Santa. Yes, I love the magic of Santa, but it is also good that the kiddos know what the REAL meaning of Christmas is all about :) As the weekend arrived, we finished up with making cookies for Santa, cooking lots of food for our family parties and going to church to celebrate the BIRTHday of Jesus! Church had a gazillion boxes of donuts to give out so we took 4 boxes and delivered them to a local hospital. It was nice talking to Cody about giving back at Christmas. I feel so blessed and I want my kids to be appreciative of what they have and know that there are others less fortunate and it is our job to give back as much as possible. I would love to start volunteering with Cody… any good ideas on where and what age is good for the kiddos to start?

We have Christmas Eve at our house and family over Christmas morning for breakfast so it was busy and exhausting, but SO fun! The boys had so much fun running around with their cousins Monday night and it was just great seeing all the fam. They had a great time opening up their gifts from Santa and it was the first Christmas that Grayson was really into it! Cody helped him open his gifts which was so adorable and then Cody let him help with his! It was fun watching them both together! We hung out in our p.j.’s the rest of the day and played with their presents. We put the kids to bed at 6:30.. they were exhausted and so were WE!

Yesterday, we awoke to the “blizzard”! It was actually freezing rain for several hours and then on and off snow all day. In honor of the snow (and waiting for daddy to get home from work to take them out to play in it :)!), we made snow paint! Equal parts white glue and white shaving cream. It dries fluffy! It was pretty cool actually because once it dries it looks like fluffy snow! Cody had fun using some foam shapes I had to stick on his masterpiece and Grayson didn’t last too long as he wanted to eat it :)

I like keeping all of my plastic containers that can’t be recycled to use for crafts like this.
That way I don’t have to use any of my dishes :)

After that, I got some snow from outside, threw down a towel and let them go to town. They had fun playing with it for a good half hour or so. O.k. yes, so I love playing in the snow, BUT just the thought of getting us ALL dressed to go out and play made me want to take a nap so I compromised :)

Here you can totally see the personality of my boys. Cody needed gloves because his hands were cold… whereas, Grayson dug right in, shoving snow in his mouth with no complaints. Talk about complete opposites!

So daddy did take them out for a bit when he got home from work. Cody came inside pretty quickly from being cold, but we had to bring Grayson in kicking and screaming after being out there FOREVER! His little cheeks were beat red, but he was SO mad that he had to come in! Hilarious!

After dinner, we made snow ice cream!!!  I have had this on the list for the last few years and looked at several different recipes. This one was AMAZING! Very sweet, but delicious! It did melt quickly so we all went from spoons to straws and drank it like a shake :) You MUST try this! Cody thought it was the coolest thing that we made ice cream out of snow!

Lastly, we had some leftover shaving cream so we made bath tub paint. Easy, quick and fun. Wipes right off the walls, but adds a little something special to bath time! I will say the red and blue do stain the skin so you may want to go with the lighter colors if the kids are going to paint themselves :) For a more natural coloring, you could use juices from fruits to dye the shaving cream. The boys had a BLAST with this! The water looked nasty after and we did have to drain it and give them a shower, but it was worth the smiles and laughs!

How was your Christmas?! Did you have fun playing in the snow… if you got any?!