Cohesive Pieces: Good Stuff: all sorts of Christmas cheer

Zoran and Iyezk . . . festive Christmas boys

I'm taking more photos than I have time to actually look through these days.

But maybe someday when Azia is 17 she'll be using my computer and digging through my stuff on some random Saturday afternoon (because, really, why would she stop doing this between now and then?) and stumble upon my collections of photos she's never seen.

I found a notebook full of my dad's old negatives when I was in high school– all photos of me and my siblings a decade earlier. All pictures I hadn't seen. I still remember it as one of the coolest discoveries I made in high school.

So rather than thinking about this backlog of photos as just one more thing I don't have time for, I'm going to just try to start thinking of it as a collection of all sorts of future surprises.

But, there are a few I have made time to look through in the last few weeks:

Gingerbread House Building

My mom always made these with us when we were young and now my kids look forward to it every year.

Still no actual gingerbread involved here. . . one of these years though, we'll try it/

Yes we just used glue guns! Way easier than scaling sugar!

Dylan doing some construction

Azia, Gwen, & Paisely

Lex really like the cotton candy for decorating his abode.

A closer look at Lex's wild, little house.

So as better to compare it with his brother's approach to things.

There are definitely some differences in Zoran and Lex's approaches to tasks. Lex's house is crazy and forcefully thrown together. Zoran's is very methodically and strategically arranged. Even down to the straight lines and consistent pattern.

And even the eating is different:

Lex actually cared little for the eating, but he loved the destorying. And then the smearing it all over everyone and everything he could reach.

Zoran didn't really want to wreck his at all. So, just a small bite out of the corner so as not to mess it up much or get his hands too dirty.

_____ -----_____ -----_____ ------_____ -----_____ ------______

St. Ignatius Christmas Bazaar

Breeze & Azia

The "I'm so sad you won't buy me the beautiful handmade scarf" pout

_____ -----_____ -----_____ ------_____ -----_____ ------______

Beautiful, Cold Weather

We haven't really had any snow . . . just a lot of fog and frost.

Cold and dreary, but beautiful, too.

_____ -----_____ -----_____ ------_____ -----_____ ------_____

Gwen and Kylie's Birthdays

Gwen gets some help with her candles from her girls

Gwen finally has someone to share her December birthday with. Her and Kylie both got to celebrate this month.

_____ -----_____ -----_____ ------_____ -----_____ ------_____

Ward Christmas Party

Lex considering Santa.

He's still not a fan. I mostly have pictures of him last year just trying to get away from him. This year he wouldn't even go any closer than this.

He finds him sort of interesting. As long as he keeps his distance.

Daid, Gage, Israel. . . watching the little kids sing

_____ -----_____ -----_____ ------_____ -----_____ ------_____

Headstart Christmas Party

Lex had his Christmas party last week. And we were the only ones there. Well a couple other families showed up after an hour or so. His class basically has zero participation in anything so far– maybe about 15% for one or two things. It's really depressing. At least the community center was a good place for Lex to throw his shield.

And Santa was there to give the kids (all 3 or 4 of them) presents. Of course Lex didn't want to talk to Santa, so he sat here by the food table and someone delivered him a present while all the other kids were on the other side of the room talking to Santa.