Gingerbread Houses, Santa, and Fire Engines

The Christmas madness has begun at our house. The Glover annual Gingerbread House Contest was held this weekend. Thankfully, this year the library, GREC, and the Glover Fire Dept., all teamed up to hold their events together on the same night instead of on two consecutive weekends prior to Christmas.

  Wayne had a small mishap with the mixer and flour while making the dough for our gingerbread house. He ended up with flour all over him and tried to flee the scene, but my camera and I proved to be faster than he is.

 Heather, carefully and meticulously, cutting our reindeer shapes with a cardboard template I had drawn. She did such a good job.

Cutting out more shapes for our scene.

 Royal icing in every color.

Can you believe that this mess will actually end up as something to be entered in a contest?

 Cole is wearing pj's because his class had had a Polar Express party that day. They wear pj's to school, watch the movie, have hot cocoa and snacks. Heather was very busy decorating and took the whole project very seriously. She would not stop decorating until practically every inch of gingerbread was covered with icing and candy.

 Cole is making Santa's workshop.

Wayne made Santa' house and Heather was responsible for the sleigh, some trees and some snowmen.

Everyone decorated a couple of the reindeer.

Here they are at the contest. Every child who enters gets a little bag with pencils, stickers, some little chocolates, and a little plastic game.

In addition to the little bag, Wayne, Cole, and Heather also won first prize. I should probably mention here that we were one of only two entries this year.( However, one of the activities of the evening is that children get to decorate premade graham cracker houses which are then also put on display.) Their prize is a gift certificate to Parker Pie. I'll be glad we have that some night soon when I don't feel like making dinner.

There were also rides with Santa on the fire engine. Not Wes this year as he was home not feeling well -  feverish, tired and achy.

 Between gingerbread decorating and sick kids, we did manage to get our tree up.

Now to tackle Heather's birthday tomorrow. I have to do some last minute gift shopping and bake a cake. For her "special" birthday dinner she has put in a request for mac and cheese from a box, sardines, and broccoli. I'm not sure that will agree with everyone in our family, especially those recovering from the tummy flu, so I might just give her that for lunch and come up with something different for dinner! 

The Old Rocking Chair

Yesterday afternoon, Wayne and Cole participated in their autumn piano recital. It was held at the church in Greensboro. Their teacher lives is Greensboro and that is where they go to her house for lessons. Cole played a little ditty called "Je Commence" and Wayne played a piece called "Hunting Horns." 

They played this duet called "The Old Rocking Chair." There's a couple of stumbles, but it's really pretty and c'mon, they're just so handsome and cute. When you see them sitting here at the baby grand in their dress shirts and ties, would you ever suspect that they fought like cats and dogs whenever they had to practice together? If their teacher only knew what we went through to get to this point.

Halloween

The Sunday afternoon before Halloween was a pumpkin carving spree. Heather was determined to carve her pumpkin all by herself, and did so even though it was quite difficult for her. She refused to give up.

 It's a Princess.  She says it's ok if it looks a little weird, because it's Halloween.

Cole carved Darth Vader. I used the mask to draw (very poorly) on the pumpkin and Cole carved out the lines.

 Wayne used a pattern we downloaded from the internet to carve Jabba the Hut.

Jabba, all ready to go to school in the morning for the pumpkin carving contest.

 Cole's Darth Vader and the Death Star, ready for school. I forgot to get pictures of all these pumpkins lit up, but they looked really cool.

Heather's Princess. No contest at her school. Preschool does not celebrate or acknowledge any holidays thanks to the Head Start program that also shares their building.

 Wayne also decided to carve one of Heather's mini pumpkins and one of my precious butternut squashes (or as Heather calls them, Peanut squashes).

 Cupcakes for Wayne and Cole's classroom parties.

 Ready for trick or treating. Wayne is a New York Yankees baseball player. Cole is Darth Vader for the 2nd year in a row, and Heather is a butterfly with very wilted antennae. You can see that our snow did not last too long.  We started trick or treating at the bottom of Perron Hill and worked our way up and back down the other side. We missed being able to visit with Elaine and Bernard, but hope that Elaine is feeling better and on the mend.

While I was in Maine with Wayne and Heather, Joanie had Wes and Cole over to her house for birthday dinner with Grammie. We haven't celebrated Wes's birthday yet, as a family, but we'll do something this week. Wes enjoyed all the phone calls and cards. Thanks everyone.

Fun at Preschool (After Hours)

Yesterday late afternoon and evening, Heather's preschoool held a Fall Festival. Wes was coaching soccer and Wayne is too cool for preschool, so he stayed with Joanie.

There was face painting and sack races.

 Apple printing and sand art.

Another cider press. This one belongs to Linda and Evan Perron. Linda works at the preschool now. Also, a tractor hayride.

A petting zoo. I fell in love with the baby goats. They were so cute and mischievous.

 Last but not least, the was scarecrow making. The finished scarecrows will be displayed outside the school

There was also plenty of fall food. During class earlier, the kids had prepared pumpkin cookies, pumpkin pudding, and squash soup. The kitchen staff had also made chicken sandwiches to make a rounded meal.

At the end of the night, every family got to take home a book and a pumpkin.