Around the House this December

December is a fun, exciting, exhausting month for us.  It starts with Charlie's birthday, runs through the Christmas holiday, slams into Ephram's birthday and drops us at New Year's Eve.  There is always a lot of excitement in our house in general.  

Here are some of the things that were happening at the Kovar's this December.

Advent calendars - we had four this year, and a calendar for each of us so that we would know which one to do each day.  Everyone was most excited at the Lego calendar.  

This year we added a Little People Nativity set to our Christmas paraphernalia.  All three kids loved it, but Ephram did most of all.  He was constantly rearranging the characters.  Here he removed the angel from the roof and replaced her with one of the wise men to sing "Away in the Manger".

We got the Merry-Okee back out.  Everyone had a blast with it.  Even Macie.  Even when Ephram came and grabbed it from her, she'd just dance along.

 The Surprise Box continued to give us fun things to do.  Sometimes it left us art projects, sometimes treats, and sometimes it left bigger things like our newest Christmas movie - Prep and Landing.  Incidentally, Ephram is fixated on this show.  He now wants to be a Prep and Landing elf when he grows up.  He practices for it all the time. This works well since he's not moving in on Charlie's territory.  Charlie is going to be Santa when he grows up.  Except for the times he's going to be a magician.

Ephram took pictures of everyone and everything with every device he could get his hands on all month long.  Here he is using Photo Booth to take pictures of himself.

This year I taught Ephram how to wrap presents.  He chose these links to give to Macie and was so proud of his wrapping job.  Even if it did include some super long pieces of tape.

Charlie wrapped his presents too.  He did ask me for help with the bow on this one.  Charlie's still working on his shoe-tying skills.

And, of course, we did a lot of baking.  We actually made four kinds of cookies this year... but the kids always love sugar cookies the most.  We made two varieties of sugar cookies and divided them equally between the boys.  Each boy made his own frosting and had a blast decorating his cookies.

And there was so much more happening too...  So hold for a post about arts and crafts in December to follow within the next few days!