Graham Cracker Houses

Monday and Tuesday were the last days I had the girls homeschool before their winter break. It is a relief to be done for awhile but at the same time now we have all this extra time to fill. Monday afternoon the girls went to Grace's salon to get haircuts. Lucy has decided to grow out her hair so Grace only trimmed the back. Penny cut a lot of inches off and her hair looks so much healthier. She wanted to add curtain bangs but I don't Grace really had time to do them so she just gave her a couple pieces of shorter hair in the front. Maybe we will have to come back when things slow down for Grace. 

Monday night Lucy had the family versus kids volleyball game. Tyler played and Mariah came and played too. I think Mariah really enjoyed getting to play. I spent most of the time trying to keep Ruby from running onto the court. We were in the auxiliary gym and there was nothing blocking her from getting onto the court. The adults ended up winning the game- the only "game" Lucy's team lost this sesason ;) We are so grateful they come out to support her.

Wednesday, to celebrate the start of break, we went to the Outdoor Adventure Center in Detroit. We hadn't been there in a long while. When we got there, we were literally the only ones there for awhile, that was really nice. This was a fun place for Ruby to play and explore things. It was maybe a little less entertaing for Lucy and Penny at times but they were good sports. Lucy and Penny seemed to like the play kitchen and the airplane you could go in.  They have a place with water and stepping stones and Ruby kept trying to get in the water, instead of stepping on the stones. Ruby also really liked the bridge and a little pretend vegetable garden they had. At the end, a nice worker gave me some BOGO passes for next time and said I would need to be sure to have that doll of mine (Ruby) say "hello" when we come again. Ruby is just so popular. It was hard to get a good picture of her though, she never stopped moving.

Thursday the girls and I did a little more holiday shopping and then we went to Wendy's for lunch. Sharon was kind and had given us some Christmas money so I thought I would use it for a lunch out. I tried out their salted caramel frosty and wasn't a huge fan. A bit too sweet for me.

Thursday evening the boys had their holiday archery competition. I came with Penny and Ruby to watch. Lucy said it sounded boring and did not want to come. You have to be quiet when the archers shoot and Ruby had a couple of tough moments where she wanted to be noisy but overall she did really good. Ruby was just so excited to her brothers. She would shout "bro!" and would run up to where they were standing between shots. 

Friday we woke up to a good amount of snow so the girls all went outside and played in it. Meanwhile the boys were disappointed that there wasn't enough snow for a snow day. Lucy made a pretty great snowman and Ruby liked the new friend. Ruby seems to like the snow but she hates the gear and she refuses gloves so her hands are always red and cold.

Friday evening we had our annual Graham Cracker House Party. We had our usual attendees, the Farquharsons and the DePlonty's, and this year we added the Towne's (Mimi's family). Andrea was also over so she got to join in. Unfortunately, Steven had to work and he did not want to get off so he missed out. I was bummed that he didn't come and I think his friend Evan was bummed as well. We started off with the kids building graham cracker houses while the parents chatted. Tyler had spent the last couple days working on the trophies and they turned out quite nice (although they still smelled like spray paint and so did our house). After an hour I told the kids the time was up and we all voted. Lucy was so excited that she finally won a trophy- she won most "Epic". She had built a pretty great castle. Then Evan won most "Beautiful". He had a house with a mini nativity in it's yard. It really was nice. And Andrea won most "Creative". She had made a house that looked like Santa and was being pulled by magical unicorns. I really like how much the kids get into the contest. Well all the kids except Eva...she didn't participate and didn't seem particularly happy about being at the party. And Ben was not doing a very good job of including Beck so he seemed uncomfortable. I wonder if they will want to come next year.

After the graham cracker house making, we played a Christmas Trivia game. My prizes were tricky prize boxes with money inside...but 1 out of the 4 boxes did not have money in it. It's funny that some of the questions I thought were going to be easy, ended up being trickier and vise versa. I was terrible at knowing who raised their hand first and probably offended some people but we had a variety of winners- 1 from each family- Ben, Mimi, Beck and Evan. Unfortunately Evan got the empty prize box. 

The next game was Left, Right, Center- the kids used Lego blocks and whoever got them all in the end, won a small Lego set. I had given them too many blocks (8) and the game lasted way too long but I think maybe they were still entertained? Evan won. And then they played again and Ben won. After that the kids goofed around (smoking peppermint stick candy canes and doing other weird kid things) and then everyone dispersed. Ruby had way too much candy and was up way past her bedtime but surprisingly slept like a champ that night. Meanwhile I spent the night overthinking everything I said. Ha, I have issues! Besides my crazy, I think everyone had a good time and I think Mimi's family was a great addition. 

Saturday was a lazy day. That night Tyler and I went to a grown up party at Grace's house with some other couples. There were 2 couples I hadn't hung out with for awhile and it was honestly really nice to shake up things. There was yummy food and we all just chatted the whole time. The conversations were pretty fun and I actually didn't go to bed that night overthinking everything I said, lol. Maybe because we didn't get back until late and I was pooped, ha.