December

To start of with, Ella got a haircut!  It was a bold move.  She wanted short hair with bangs.  I was reluctant, but took on the 'it'll grow back' approach.  Not everybody can pull off that look without looking like a five year old.  Not her though!

I want to add in the kids projects they had to do for school.  Here's Aiden's.  They had a paper tree and had to decorate it, creatively.  Safe to say, his was the only one made of legos.  I love the flaming Batman atop the tree.

Ella had a heritage project where she was supposed to collect information about her ancestors.  We made a video.

♫Christmas time is here...♫

Cookies with the kids.

Christmas pictures with the kids.  A daunting task.  We survived.  Barely.

I only took one picture of each of the kids on Christmas morning.  Don't know how that happened.  Anyway, Build-a-Bears for everybody!  I had gotten them months before at a yard sale for $5.  I told the kids we could destuff them and I'd take them to the mall to go through the Build-a-Bear experience, but they passed.  Guess it is kind of morbid in a way.  Poor deprived children don't know what they're missing.  I tried to get everything for Christmas beforehand anticipating we'd be pretty broke considering we were just opening the business.  It was a second hand Christmas, and nobody seemed to question or care!  Good little children.  So far I've managed to shield them from thinking that 'new' things actually have to be 'new'.

 
For Brian, I signed him up for SendMeASurprise.  So, for the next six months, he'll receive a package a month and we don't know what's inside.  It's a surprise!