More Treeskirt Adventures

December 17- powdered donuts anyone?

December 18- stilts; This spot in
the dining room took a long time
for us to discover.

December 19- Marshmallow bubble bath

December 20- Paper chain countdown...
only 5 days until Christmas!

Scout Activities

Early last week was action packed. During den meeting we had a fire pit to make s'mores and to hold a flag retirement ceremony. Then this weekend the pack met up to make luminaries for the church where we hold pack events and then the scouts sang Christmas carols at an area senior home.

Ryan and Tyler perform a funny skit involving
Tyler pushing Ryan off a cliff.

Roasting marshmallows for s'mores. Daphne was quite
happy to tag along to this particular den meeting.

Making luminaries (bags with sand and tea lights)

The pack

Den 7 scout moms: Melissa, Candice, Renee, baby Matthew
(belongs to Karen), Karen, and Sandra

Den 7: Matthias, Roman, Jackson, Tyler, and Ryan
(David not present)

Caroling

School Holiday Parties

The kids are now officially out of school for the 2-week holiday break as of today. I went to Daphne's class holiday party on Friday and Tyler's was yesterday. I was too busy chatting and helping the kids make snowman ornaments to get any photos at Tyler's party. The snowman ornaments are full of marshmallows and Tyler was quite excited that after he got home I told him he could eat the marshmallows and replace them with cotton balls.

Daphne decorates a cookie. The entire pre-K sang Rudolph in
front of the whole school at morning assembly (Daphne thought
that was fun) and then each class sang it for the parents at the
party. They even had fun hand movements to go along to the lyrics.

My cookie

Treeskirt's Latest Adventures

December 11: Noshing on the kids' Fruit-by-the-Foot

December 12: The Grinch exacts some revenge
after being tied up by Treeskirt the week before

December 13: Treeskirt hung some seasonal
gel clings in the kids' bedroom windows

Daphne's window

Tyler's window

December 14: Perusing the toy catalogs

Circling his favorite toys in the catalogs

December 15: Treeskirt left the kids a reminder note to shape
up after they squabbled too much the day before. He reminded
them they could end up with a lump of coal in their stocking!

December 16: Hiding in the silverware drawer

Ear Infection

Poor Tyler stayed home from school on Wednesday with an ear
infection. He doesn't remember the millions of ear infections he
used to get when he was a baby and toddler. Luckily it's been a
long time since he has had one!

Peanuts Christmas Comics

We have a book that is a compilation of Peanuts Christmas comics over the years. Tyler likes to read it every year during the holidays. He already read the whole thing to himself this past weekend. When he reads the comics aloud to me and he gets to one he really likes, Tyler gets excited and says something like, "Oh! I love this one! Don't read ahead."

Ms. Christmas

Both kids are super excited about Christmas, but Daphne especially likes to display her Christmas spirit.

Out and about

Hanging out at Lowe's

Eating dinner

Waiting for Brunch

Dentist

Every time Daphne gets her teeth cleaned, she
loves using the giant demonstration toothbrush
and mirror to brush the dragon's teeth.

Treeskirt is Back!

Treeskirt, our scout elf from the north pole, is back! He is keeping an eye on the kids to determine whether they should end up Santa's nice list or naughty list. And he has been getting up to a little mischief of his own!

December 5: Treeskirt arrived and tied up the Grinch. He
left the kids a letter that told them he had missed them.

December 6: Tyler was surprised when he
opened his underwear/sock drawer

Slumber party with Joshua (the buffalo)- The
soccer sock makes a nice sleeping bag!

December 7: Hot air balloon ride

Daphne really enjoyed this stunt but
wanted her balloon (from the dentist's
office) back.

December 8: Toothpaste on the mirror

December 9: hiding in a basket of pine cones

Good vantage point

December 10: Rudolph noses for everyone

Christmas Joke

Tyler passed along this gem:

Q: What is Santa's favorite city?
A: Santa Fe

I have a feeling there are a few Santa cities in California that he likes too!

My Shopping Helper

Daphne's outfit brought lots of
smiles to other grocery shoppers.

Heading Home to Texas

We had a great week in LA but all vacations must come to an end. It's a good thing that Christmas break is right around the corner!

LA Zoo

We spent our last day in LA at the zoo. They had a special animatronic dinosaur exhibit that the kids loved and of course plenty of animals. We ended the day in the Australia section, which was complete with koalas, kangaroos, wallabies, and Tasmanian devils fighting over a piece of food. Michael enjoyed watching a dad orangutan roughhouse with his child.

They are only smiling because they don't
realize they are the T. Rex's next snack!

Daphne in condor wings in the condor kid's exhibit

Faux roasted marshmallows anyone?

The zoo brought in reindeer for the holidays. One of the reindeer
had already lost it's antlers for the year. One of the zookeepers
let us touch the molten antlers. The tips were still velvety!
Apparently the velvet is itchy and the reindeer often itch their
antlers against tree bark to scrape off the velvet.

Animal carousel

Daphne and Abuelito waited in line for a little bit to feed
the giraffes but they were already full so we had to move on.