last week before Christmas!
i've been busy all this week trying to keep my mind in check and not forget what i need to do this month for my classes, the playgroup and my visit down south over Christmas. since Saturday was the first of my Christmas mini-celebrations in class, i ran around with Kay yesterday to find simple decorations to make the class environment more festive. for Halloween, i bought a backdrop to put up on the wall for the kids to enjoy and for the parents to take pics of their kids in front of it, but i couldn't find anything like that at stores for Christmas, so i decided to make one. i had the idea of using shiny green tinsel to make the outline of a tree on some poster paper, but it felt really bland and needed some jazzing up. so, i got out my stamps and scrap booking paper and started to stamp and cut out decorations for my tinsel tree. ending result was the biggest Christmas card i've ever made! you can see pics of it on my facebook.
so today started off my Christmas mini-celebrations in classes. the kids got a kick out of the tree, we sang the holiday song we'd been working on all month, "wrote" a letter to Santa(more like drew what we wanted), and at the end, i read them "The Night Before Christmas". this was probably the first time ever that they'd heard this story and i was reading the original poem, so it wasn't a surprise when they didn't pay much attention to it. they did like the part in the book where Santa starts stuffing the toys into the stockings, because there was a picture of a big toy train (it's a class of all boys 3-4 yo so go fig). ^_^;; i gave them my little present (little pack of stickers and confetti), and said my good byes. it was only then that i realized that i wouldn't be seeing them again until next year! :)
anyway after class, i zipped straight home, did some grocery shopping and went on a quest to find some non-peppermint flavored candy canes. luckily, we have a store next to us called HOLA that sells a whole bunch of fancy western stuff. i had seen candy canes selling at the store where i'd gotten my Christmas decorations on Friday, but they were all peppermint and some kids (including Kay) don't like the flavor. it's a good thing i held off until today, because i found a whole bunch of candy canes at HOLA in all kinds of flavors! they had vanilla, chocolate, cherry, strawberry and the regular mint. i went with the cherry flavored ones since they still looked like regular candy canes, and i didn't want my kids thinking that all candy canes where brown (chocolate) or yellow(vanilla) :P i bought three boxes at NT$99/12 pc and went back home to start making gifts for the playgroup kids and my other students. i originally wanted to make candy cane reindeer, but i didn't want to bother with buying the piping along with the eyes and noses, so i opted for plain candy canes attached to the little gift packets i'd assembled earlier. i'll get pictures up later.
afterward, i wrapped up the remainder of the presents (got hubby some much needed Nike socks) that hadn't been wrapped yet, did some laundry and then made chicken cutlets for dinner. since Saturdays are daddy days for Kay now, both hubby and Kay were out the entire day. they didn't come back until around 6:30 pm and Kay had zonked out in daddy's arms then. that gave me time to catch up on some laundry, grocery shopping and checking our mailbox.
speaking of mail, i got two surprises in the mail today: a Christmas card from my friend Renee from back home and an early 年賀状(nengajyou=new year's card)from a friend in Japan (thank you DAZU!!!). my in-laws' Christmas present for Kay also arrived today, so i'm going to stash that away until later. since i've been teaching about Santa lately, Kay's started to really understand the concept of Santa. she can even spell his name :) however, i don't say that all her gifts are from him, just the ones that we've bought. so this year, Santa has given her a Disney's Princess puzzle book, but the cute clothes are from obaa-chan and ojii-chan :) oh, and we're doing Secret Santa for our playgroup kids, so she'll get another gift from Santa this upcoming Monday. ^_^
tomorrow is when things will start to get crazy, because i'm gonna start baking a whole bunch of stuff :P i'm meeting up with my friend Robyn tomorrow for a Christmas luncheon and then going straight home to bake and decorate 30-some cupcakes for Monday's playgroup Christmas party. that's going to take at least 3 hours, because of the little conventional oven that can only bake 6 cupcakes at a time... ~_~;; then on Wednesday, i'm going to bake two batches of cookies for my sister and her family and then one batch of brownies on the following Thursday (i finally got my hands on some walnuts!!). Friday is when i head on down south to Tainan with all the baked goodies and Kay to spend a Christmas weekend with my sister, BIL, nephew and soon to be NIECE (due in May)!!! :D unfortunately, hubby won't be making it this time because of work, but we'll be home to spend New Year's Eve together, which also happens to be our 5th anniversary! :D
dunno when i'll be able to post anything after this since i'll be busy and at my sister's, so here's a little Christmas greeting from Kay :D
so today started off my Christmas mini-celebrations in classes. the kids got a kick out of the tree, we sang the holiday song we'd been working on all month, "wrote" a letter to Santa(more like drew what we wanted), and at the end, i read them "The Night Before Christmas". this was probably the first time ever that they'd heard this story and i was reading the original poem, so it wasn't a surprise when they didn't pay much attention to it. they did like the part in the book where Santa starts stuffing the toys into the stockings, because there was a picture of a big toy train (it's a class of all boys 3-4 yo so go fig). ^_^;; i gave them my little present (little pack of stickers and confetti), and said my good byes. it was only then that i realized that i wouldn't be seeing them again until next year! :)
anyway after class, i zipped straight home, did some grocery shopping and went on a quest to find some non-peppermint flavored candy canes. luckily, we have a store next to us called HOLA that sells a whole bunch of fancy western stuff. i had seen candy canes selling at the store where i'd gotten my Christmas decorations on Friday, but they were all peppermint and some kids (including Kay) don't like the flavor. it's a good thing i held off until today, because i found a whole bunch of candy canes at HOLA in all kinds of flavors! they had vanilla, chocolate, cherry, strawberry and the regular mint. i went with the cherry flavored ones since they still looked like regular candy canes, and i didn't want my kids thinking that all candy canes where brown (chocolate) or yellow(vanilla) :P i bought three boxes at NT$99/12 pc and went back home to start making gifts for the playgroup kids and my other students. i originally wanted to make candy cane reindeer, but i didn't want to bother with buying the piping along with the eyes and noses, so i opted for plain candy canes attached to the little gift packets i'd assembled earlier. i'll get pictures up later.
afterward, i wrapped up the remainder of the presents (got hubby some much needed Nike socks) that hadn't been wrapped yet, did some laundry and then made chicken cutlets for dinner. since Saturdays are daddy days for Kay now, both hubby and Kay were out the entire day. they didn't come back until around 6:30 pm and Kay had zonked out in daddy's arms then. that gave me time to catch up on some laundry, grocery shopping and checking our mailbox.
speaking of mail, i got two surprises in the mail today: a Christmas card from my friend Renee from back home and an early 年賀状(nengajyou=new year's card)from a friend in Japan (thank you DAZU!!!). my in-laws' Christmas present for Kay also arrived today, so i'm going to stash that away until later. since i've been teaching about Santa lately, Kay's started to really understand the concept of Santa. she can even spell his name :) however, i don't say that all her gifts are from him, just the ones that we've bought. so this year, Santa has given her a Disney's Princess puzzle book, but the cute clothes are from obaa-chan and ojii-chan :) oh, and we're doing Secret Santa for our playgroup kids, so she'll get another gift from Santa this upcoming Monday. ^_^
tomorrow is when things will start to get crazy, because i'm gonna start baking a whole bunch of stuff :P i'm meeting up with my friend Robyn tomorrow for a Christmas luncheon and then going straight home to bake and decorate 30-some cupcakes for Monday's playgroup Christmas party. that's going to take at least 3 hours, because of the little conventional oven that can only bake 6 cupcakes at a time... ~_~;; then on Wednesday, i'm going to bake two batches of cookies for my sister and her family and then one batch of brownies on the following Thursday (i finally got my hands on some walnuts!!). Friday is when i head on down south to Tainan with all the baked goodies and Kay to spend a Christmas weekend with my sister, BIL, nephew and soon to be NIECE (due in May)!!! :D unfortunately, hubby won't be making it this time because of work, but we'll be home to spend New Year's Eve together, which also happens to be our 5th anniversary! :D
dunno when i'll be able to post anything after this since i'll be busy and at my sister's, so here's a little Christmas greeting from Kay :D
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