A Busy December!

December has flown by and Christmas is soon upon us!  The kids have been busy with activities and school, while we prepare for Christmas by decorating the house, baking treats, attending shows, and making gifts for family.  I have been quite busy at work due to the sudden and widespread outbreak of influenza in the Twin Cities area.  I also was out sick for a day, but it surprisingly wasn't influenza but a stomach bug instead. The kids have been relatively healthy so far, but still have lingering colds and coughs off and on.  So far, no influenza for the Cronk family!  Here's what we've been up to in December so far...

Sarah lost her first tooth!  She put her tooth in a little tooth shaped wooden box under her pillow for the Tooth Fairy and, when she awoke in the morning, she found a crisp new $2 bill and Mr. Elf was sitting on her bookcase holding the tooth box.  

A few days later, she lost her 2nd tooth!

We had fun attending the Christmas party for the medical staff's children at Fairview Southdale Hospital.  The kids had fun dancing to the Teddy Bear Band, making crafts, meeting Santa, and receiving a little gift bag.

Making handprint reindeer hats.

Reindeer hat and candy cane.

Checking out the clown doing magic tricks. 

Meeting Santa.

Sarah giving him an earful.

Trevor wasn't so sure about him.

While Austin was in school, Sarah and Trevor and I went to "ballet Tuesday" at the Landmark Center in St. Paul.  They put out tables for everybody to come have lunch, then the kids get to sit at the edge of the dance floor and the St. Paul Ballet performs for about a half hour (a preview of their upcoming show).  The kids then get to meet the dancers afterward.  The kids enjoyed watching the dancing and Trevor really got into it. He was clapping along with the music, dancing in place, and even spun himself around on the floor where he was sitting.  Sarah enjoyed watching the dancing and was talking about it for days afterward, but she got really shy and crabby at the end and didn't want to meet the dancer or go up front with the other kids. 

On 12/11, Austin sang in the grade school Christmas Program at school.  He did a great job.

On 12/13, we saw "The Grinch That Stole Christmas" at Children's Theater Company. This was the best I could get of the kids before the show.  They were too excited to all look at me at the same time.

Intermission lollipops.

Then on 12/14, we made a LOT of sugar cookie dough and froze it in rolls to make Christmas cookies later.  I had lots of "help" getting it made.  Trevor kept asking me to "make it noisy" (aka turn on the stand mixer) and now that Sarah can read (!!!), she did a good job reading the recipe for us.

Sarah and Austin were scheduled for dentist appointments on 12/18 and I had noticed that after Trevor had a course of antibiotics for a wicked ear infection a few weeks ago, he suddenly had staining and plaque on his teeth (just like when Austin had antibiotics for his eye infection as a toddler).  I figured that I could schedule an appointment for Trevor to have his first dentist visit later when we were in for Austin and Sarah's visit.  It turns out, they had an opening 1 hr after the big kids' appointment, so we just got the big kids' appointments done, took Austin to school, then went back for Trevor to have his dentist visit.  He did great!  He sat so nicely.  He opened his mouth to show his teeth.  He let them examine, clean, and polish his teeth and even sat nicely for his fluoride treatment.  I was really proud of him for being so good at the dentist at only 2 years old!  They do such a great job at Children's Dental Care!

Showing his "aaaaah" to the hygienist.

Getting his teeth cleaned (and pretty excited about the toothbrush he's holding).

On 12/19, Sarah had her preschool Christmas program.  She did a great job!

Then we got our crafting on!  I found an idea on Pinterest for a cute hand print ornament the kids could make for Nanny and Grandpa and Gramma and PopPop.  It (of course) ended up being much more involved than I thought it would be, and our progress on the project was interrupted by my day of illness, but we got it done and it turned out really cute!  We did hand print salt dough ornaments and then painted them to look like Santa!  Here's the final product. (Also why I'm holding this blog post to not publish until Christmas - don't want to spoil the surprise for the recipients of these gifts). 

We made the dough, did the hand prints (not easy with an enthusiastic but squirmy 2 year old), and baked them to dry/harden them on one day.  Then later in the week, we pulled out some old scrub tops for paint smocks and got the kids going on painting.  They did a great job and, after the painting for the project was done, they actually ended up moving on to painting on paper and all 3 sat at the table painting for over an hour!  They loved it!

That evening, I covered the ornaments with Mod Podge (my first foray into the use of Mod Podge) to seal them up and then Sarah picked out some ribbon to finish them off.  

On Sarah's last day of dance class before Christmas break, they had a pajama day and Sarah wore her Christmas elf jammies.  The showed us a preview of part of their recital dance...

Trevor thought the blow up Santa and nutcracker in the studio were really fun!

Then we got the cookies baked (remember the frozen dough from the weekend before?).  Sarah and Trevor were very excited to watch them bake in the oven. 

We had Nanny and Grandpa over to help decorate the cookies the next day.

Trevor was very serious about putting the sprinkles on the cookies and did a great job with some supervision from Grandpa. 

Mommy was churning out batches of buttercream frosting to keep the decorating going, but I did get a photo with my kiddos (thanks Nanny!).

Excited about the cookies! (who wouldn't be?)

Austin learned how to play checkers at school and, by taking Daddy's glass chess board and pieces from his Connect Four game, he managed to put together a checkers game to play against Grandpa. 

Auntie Michelle and Uncle Brian joined us later and Michelle made gingerbread cookies with Sarah.

My little elf Trevor is so excited that Christmas is coming!