Construction or Destruction?

Wow, that's a lot of pictures...but we've been busy in our household lately. Zane is so into "making" Christmas stuff and begs me every day to do a new and different craft. I bought this set of Christmas cards from Usborne books that gives you a ton of fun ideas for easy crafts to do with kids and he is loving them. So far we've made snowflakes and a couple of versions of snowmen including our bouncing snowman as modeled above by Zane.

And of course a day would not be complete if my living room wasn't turned from nice, quiet, cozy room to full out fight arena. The boys and Cliff love to wrestle and get tickled, and chased and tackled. Daddy is definitely the preferred playmate...mom just doesn't do it right. Rhett is right in there trying to get his own two bits in.

Today we tried to construct a gingerbread house. It has become a tradition here in the Johnson household...I buy one of those nice kits and we put it together. The last two years "we" has been Grammie S and Zane doing the building and decorating and mom being delegated by Zane to Supervisor - from across the table. This year we had to build without Grammie's expertise....and we did really great until I had to move it off the table. We should have just had a picnic for supper. Sigh. But me, being who I am, figured I could move it over to the counter with no harm done. Wrong. The hole frame shifted and we lost our roof. Zane was absolutely devastated. So I have promised him that tomorrow we will make more icing and attempt to re-glue our roof back on the house now that the walls are dry. On the upside me and the boys had a great time decorating it and eating way too much candy and icing. Rhett's favorite thing to do was dip his finger in the icing bowl and feed it to mom! They both loved the fact that I was letting them eat the icing with their fingers out of the bowl and it was one of those warm, fuzzy mom moments when you just know that you've done something right and hopefully made a great memory that they will look back on when they're older and say something like : " mom was so great that day" or something else that's just as flattering.

We also watched some of the video we've taken of the kids in the last year. We got to watch Rhett crawl and walk and Zane be a great big brother. We also realized just how far I have come in my weight struggle. It was a real eye opener and I'm so thankful to everyone who has given me the support on this journey and continues to support me as I approach my goal.

It is FREEZING here and snowing and feeling very much like Christmas. I've been trying really hard to teach and remind the boys that the reason we celebrate is because of Christ's birth and gift and sacrifice for us. I think I'm making progress.

And the frustration of the day was playing organ in church today. Rhett was absolutely devastated that he couldn't come with me and screamed and screamed and screamed. Poor Cliff had to take him out. He would get him calmed down and come back in with him and Rhett would take one look at the podium and burst into tears again. Our bishop's shoulders were just shaking because he found this soooo amusing. We find it frustrating but know that he will outgrow this....hopefully sooner than later.