Annual Cody Christmas Photos

 

Every year I love chronicling our Christmas with pictures of the kids. The Christmas tree provides a great backdrop to show just how much they’ve grown since the last year. This year I took an afternoon (after naptime) and got them dressed up. I bribed them with candy if they did well for their pictures. They did great for the individual shots but little Miss Busy Body Abigail would not cooperate for a group shot. So we did our family photos after church Sunday and with Brett to help me, it was much easier. They did surprisingly well!

Starting with my littlest elf who is very photogenic. I got the most of her, because I was the most afraid hers’ wouldn’t turn out because she’s so active!

    

Compare to last year:

This middle boy is always a little tricky to take pictures of because he’s 3 and he doesn’t want to do anything that he doesn’t want to do! But he did pretty good for awhile…

  

Look at that little face from last year:

 

And of course my biggest girl was all ready for her photo shoot. She knew exactly how she wanted to pose and cheesed for the camera! Looking back, though, most of the pictures of her turned out blurry. The one I was least concerned about turned out the worst!

  

And last year’s

And the outtakes of the group shot:

 

 

And for fun, a flashback from 2009:

And of course the one from last year:

Chronicles of Mischief, The Sequel

 

Remember when I posted about a toddler-sized Andrew’s Chronicles of Mischief?

It’s happening all over again! Different Cody kid.

This one likes to dig in my trash can at my desk. She can tip it over and get things out. She especially likes Dr. Pepper. My kind of kid!

At night before bed she is usually very silly. She loves to giggle and it’s infectious! She squeals when she gets excited. She loves to play peekaboo or be chased around or tickled. She feels like she has to scream, probably because that’s how she hears her brother & sister talk!

She also loves to dance, and can understand what I mean when I tell her to dance.

She loves to take her socks off. More often than not, she sleeps with one sock on and one sock off. And when I go to get her in the morning, she is always standing up in her crib. Anything that was in there will be on the floor in front of the crib—sometimes pants are included.

She loves to climb and stand up on things. Sometimes dangerous things. It’s too bad she looks really cute doing it.

Since Andrew has been potty-training and she likes to do whatever he does, she has been playing around with his little potty. And it’s not surprising to see this. Or toilet paper spread around the floor.

  

All this and she still doesn’t even walk on her own!!

She’s also getting to be so smart! She’s learning to use a fork and spoon on her own (although she hasn’t quite gotten it yet).

More Christmas Fun

 

I always love seeing Christmas through the eyes of my children. I always want to make sure they have great memories to take with them as they grow of all the fun things we did together during the Christmas season. Hopefully, they are also taking with them the true meaning of the season and not forgetting what it’s really all about.

A few weeks ago, we went to story time at the library. I didn’t even realize Santa was going to be there! The librarian took these pictures for me on her phone and e-mailed them to me. Leah tells Santa something new she wants every time she sits on his lap. Her requests are very specific!

 

Saturday the 7th was the Newton Grove Christmas parade. It was one of the coldest days we’ve had in awhile. And a little rainy as well. We were in the parade the past two years but this year we got to watch, and the kids loved it, even if it was just a small town! We watched from the comfort of the back of our SUV.

Then Tuesday our MOPS group went to a local Hospice Center to sing Christmas carols. What a great way for the kids to think about someone other than themselves. They did so well and weren’t even the least bit afraid. Not many residents were alert but I know the staff at least enjoyed their singing. Leah has a great new little friend in our MOPS group, Emma, and they got to play together at McDonalds’ afterward.

For school we’ve been doing lots of Christmas-related activities. This year we’re doing a Jesse Tree for our Bible devotion time. Each day we hear a story from the Bible that shows how God’s love resounds throughout the whole Bible, even before he sent His Son on Christmas. Then they get to color an ornament with a picture from the day’s story and hang it on their own mini tree in their room. It has been a great review of the stories we’ve already learned and a way for them to see how all the stories in the Bible fit together.

We’ve been studying how people in different countries celebrate Christmas. We look at books or websites to see what types of traditions they have. One we learned about was Mexico and we read about The Legend of the Poinsettia, which originated in Mexico. So we made a poinsettia craft out of paper.

Andrew has been participating in school work a lot more lately and wants to do everything Leah does. So I try to incorporate him when I can. One day we did some science experiments with candy canes. In one, we put the candy cane in warm water. It completely dissolves!! In another we melted it in the oven. If you get the timing just right, you can bend the candy cane into different shapes. Then if you put it in even longer, it completely melts down into the shapes you formed.

And we made some gingerbread cookies. Leah and Andrew “helped” at every step. I even wrote the recipe out on index cards so they could learn about reading a recipe. Of course, whenever I let both of them help, they inevitably fight over something or whine that they didn’t get to do some part. It’s never as fun as it seems like it will be.

 

And my quickly growing baby has been keeping us all on our toes and keeping us giggling. She loves to laugh and she loves to get into mischief! She still hasn’t really messed with much on the tree though. She has too many other things to get into!

2013 NGBC Children’s Christmas Play

 

Sunday night was our church’s annual Children’s Christmas play. The kids were really looking forward to it this year and Leah talked about it non-stop. She was so excited when she had memorized her lines. They all did very well and had a lot of fun! Lucky for you, I have an IPod this year with a video camera for your viewing enjoyment!

Andrew was supposed to be a little star. But the star was itchy and he claimed he was “scared.” (Which really just means he’s 3 and doesn’t want to do something.) At the very last minute he decided he wanted to be an angel like Leah because “he wanted to fly.” So I found an extra costume and let him put it on, even though it looked a little girly. The star would have been cute.

 

Leah of course had no problem being an angel again this year—her BFF’s were all angels, too.

 

They both stood on stage really well for the entire 30 minute show.

Leah and the other angels sang “Silent Night.”

 

 

As you can see, we have a good little bunch with all different sizes of kids. They each memorized a little mini 4-line poem for their lines.

Andrew and another 3-year-old sang “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” He nailed it in practice, but on stage he wasn’t exactly with the piano. Still, he stole the show!

 

They let everyone choose any song to sing and Leah wanted to do “Jingle Bells.” I know, I must teach my children more Christmas carols!!

 

 

Santa always makes a visit after the play. Leah and Andrew have seen him 3 times now, so they were old pros. They didn’t really get to tell this Santa much (although rest assured Leah had one more thing in mind to tell him) but he gave them a present. Abigail, as I suspected, was not too excited about the scary guy with a beard!

 

Christmas Time is Near…

 

Last Friday was our annual Cody Family Christmas Tree Decorating Day. The tradition always starts with heading to a local tree farm to pick out our tree. Since we’ve lived here, we’ve discovered a great farm that has both cut-your-own & Frasier Firs already cut (that are really not too expensive!). The man that owns it is very knowledgable & friendly. We found our tree almost the first minute we stepped out of the car.

After we got it tied up and onto the car, we walked around a little to look at the cut-your-own trees. It was a cold day but sunny and nice.

  

 

Then when we got home it was lunch time. We traditionally have Pizza Dip with chips, and this year we had it as our lunch! We also had popcorn. (And the kids had a banana, just in case you wonder about the health factor!) And we watched A Charlie Brown Christmas while Daddy got the tree up and strung the lights.

Then it was time to decorate! Leah was so excited, because she knew there was a little tin of ornaments with her name on it. I have been saving the ornaments each kid gets every year and Leah’s already amassed quite a collection (including Princess ones, of course). She was eager to put the ornaments on the tree, and she actually did a really good job spreading them out!

Abigail slept through the decorating process, thankfully, and so far she really hasn’t gotten into much. We did put a few empty boxes & stuffed animals under the tree in hopes that they would distract her from the ornaments and she loves the ones with bells to shake. Hopefully her curious side will not show up as she notices the tree more.

 

And the finished product! It didn’t take very long at all this year. We named our tree Ilene because it leans a little. (It even started to fall over the other night. We’ve since tied it to the wall!)

Friday evening we took our annual trip to Meadow Lights, which is only about 15 minutes from our house. There was a ton of people there and we had to wait in line a long time to ride the train to see the lights, but there was no one in line to see Santa when we first arrived! Leah and Andrew had no problem telling him what they wanted. Abigail was not a fan. Still, I love her face in the picture.

We really enjoyed the light show and know the kids will always remember our little family Christmas traditions!