Living Nativity

For the past couple of years in December, we've seen signs put up around for a Living Nativity at a church in a nearby town.  On Friday night, we finally got to go over and check it out :-)  First, after waiting for a few minutes in the auditorium, the show finally started with a short movie about the Creation Story and then a short play about story of Adam and Eve.  Clare liked it and clapped very hard but Sean said (pretty loudly), "Well, that was silly."  Everyone's a critic, I guess.  Next, we joined a group to go outside to see thirteen scenes of events from the life of Jesus.

One of our favorite scenes was when an angel appears to the shepherds - the kids loved the angel rising up above the forest to bring good news to the shepherds who were tending real sheep!

More angels!

We followed the shepherds over to an elaborate set of Bethlehem - there were merchants, customers, and Roman soldiers.  Sean really liked the soldiers and their golden armor - he high-fived a few of them while the shepherds were busy looking for the Baby Jesus.

And then we followed the Shepherds through the rest of the story:

After the very last scene (Jesus' Ascension), we went back into the church for some cookies and hot chocolate.  Overall, the kids were very impressed by the whole production and Sean's been talking about different parts of it throughout the weekend  - that and the reunion we had with his Pre-K teacher at the "cookie party" afterwards :-)

Ship Bottom Christmas Parade

Boy, do we love parades!  Even crummy weather can't keep us from enjoying a parade so on a dreary, rainy Saturday a couple of weeks ago, we went out to LBI to see the Ship Bottom Christmas Parade!  We got to Mom-Mom Jackie's house (which is where the staging area for the parade is) just as the parade was about to begin - so we hurried on out to our usual spot...

and the kids were ready to cheer "Merry Christmas" at the top of their lungs at every float and group!

They were so excited to see the Coast Guard!

And the kids liked the bagpipes!

The Shriners were there in their little cars but the DeLoreans were not - oh well!  Maybe DeLoreans can't be out in the rain?

Of course, the kids got plenty of candy canes and salt water taffy...

And Aunt-Aunt Alice brought out some cookies!

Mommy and "Baby" Clare:

And of course, Santa Claus rode by on the final "float"!

Christmas Light Parade

We took the kids over to Collingswood to see the Christmas Light Parade on Friday night.

The parade started a little late and the kids kept themselves - and us - busy running around and jumping.

Finally, once the parade began we got to see a lot of area buses, firetrucks, and homemade floats all decked out with lights!

This Elvis/Las Vegas-themed float was highly entertaining:

The kids were waiting on the floats to give out candy:

And of course, at the end of the parade, we saw Santa Claus!

Sock Snowman

Sean's school held another holiday craft contest - a sock snowman contest! Of course, the Sooys entered - we love being crafty :-)  Sean wanted a superhero snowman and I thought Superman would be pretty easy to do although looking back, I think a tiny Batman mask on a snowman would have been pretty cute.

First, we gathered our materials:  a (brand new) white tube sock, a big bag of rice, rubber bands, different colored scraps of felt, buttons, cotton balls, pipe cleaners, and our trusty little hot glue gun.

The Sooy kids took turns scooping rice into the sock while Mommy held the top of the sock open (this was hard work because it turned out I picked up a pair of compression/support socks - wow, my arms were tired the next day!):

After filling the sock a little over 2/3 full, Mommy tied off the bottom portion with a rubber band.  And then the kids scooped some more rice into the sock and Mommy tied that portion off to make the middle.

For the top, we stuffed the sock with cotton balls until we were happy with shape of the snowman's head.

Then we got busy decorating - Mommy traced out shapes for the cape and the Superman emblem and Sean cut them out.  Clare added the pipe cleaner arms.

And then Clare took a picture:

Sean and Clare picked out buttons to use the eyes, nose, and mouth, Then Sean cut up little strips of black felt for the hair.  And then Sean cut up red felt to make his little boots :-)

After everything had been hot glued into place (and then hot glued again to ensure the snowman could handle a bus ride while stuffed into Sean's backpack), the kids were proud to show off their creation:  Super-Snowman!