Gingerbread Houses/Cousin Gift Exchange

One of our Christmas traditions is making gingerbread houses.  We did them at Nana and Papa's house on Friday, but last Monday, the kids didn't want to wait.  So we broke out all the graham crackers we had and candy and whipped up some icing real quick and made gingerbread houses for Family Home Evening.  They had a lot of fun, even though we didn't have quite enough graham crackers, so everyone's roofs were only half a roof.  But we eventually got them all to stay together, so it was a success.

On Friday, the kids only had a half day of school.  We headed over to Nana and Papa's as soon as we could.  Here they are building their real gingerbread houses with some cousins.

This year, we also tried something new.  We did a cousin gift exchange.  We have four Coleman families with children in Colorado at the moment, and we also included Uncle Johnny, so there were quite a few participants.  We kept the gifts under $5, and the kids had a blast picking something out for the cousin they had and giving it to them.  Everyone loved their gift too.  Tink had little Luke, and that was my favorite because he walked around with his presents under his arms for the rest of the night.  So precious!  They all spent the rest of the evening playing with their new presents.  It was great!

Bucko got an ant farm, Minnie got a Princess dominos game, Goofy got a couple Hot Wheels and tracks, and Tink got a card game.  They all love them!  And more importantly, they loved seeing the expressions on their cousins faces when they opened the presents from them.  That's one of the things I hope they truly learn--giving is much more rewarding than receiving.  (Even though receiving is pretty fun too!)