Getting ready for Christmas

It's been very busy getting ready for Christmas. The kids have all had Christmas programs to attend. First we started with Jeni's very first play at school. She was a choral reader (third from the left - green bow) and did very well learning quite a bit of Luke Chapter 2 and singing all the beautiful songs.
Then we went to Nathan's Joy School Christmas play/party. He made a very cute Joseph. He and his Joy School friends all did a great job.

A few days later we went back to school to see Maddie's grade sing songs and share Christmas traditions from all around the world. For a class project each child had to learn about a different country and make a presentation about their Christmas traditions. Maddie learned all about Uruguay which is where my Mom went on her mission. Then of course, there has been all sorts of shopping, parties and running around. For our neighbor gifts this year I decided to bake a loaf of orange or cinnamon raisin bread for everyone. (The picture shows just over half of the bread I baked.) As things usually do, it turned out to be a bigger project than I expected and kept me very busy for several hours but it was fun to look at all of the loaves sitting on my counter and to visit with our friends as we dropped them off and wished them all a Merry Christmas.
I decided to get a head start on the wrapping and when the girls saw me bring the stuff up they wanted to help. They ended up doing most of the wrapping for me! They were very creative in their wrapping efforts but hey, I didn't have to do it all. Yay!!! Thanks girls!

Then the girls decided they wanted to make a little extra money for Christmas so they decided to set up a Hot Chocolate stand outside and sell cocoa. Since it was pretty cold nobody was out and business was very slow so they decided to go door-to-door. In the end I think they made $3.50. I've got a couple of entrepreneurs there!