Fun Days, Christmas Parties and an Ugly Cake

I always thought that Benjamin was the boy who looked the least like his dad. I, was wrong.

It almost reminds of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny Devito in Twins

I know that this is going to seem really weird, especially in light of my post a few days ago about not "doing" Santa anymore. The company that Mark works for has a big Christmas party every year for the employee's kids. Guess who is a special guest that gives all the kids presents????

You know you are out in the country when Santa arrives in the back of a truck!


Benajmin with Santa



Samuel with Santa

Santa at Huhtamaki only buys gifts for kids up to age 10. This was Nathaniel's first year to be a big kid that did not get anything. He got some cars later from Wal-Mart.

Benjamin got a hand-held football video game. (Ha-ha!! I bet Annmarie likes that!!)


Samuel got a helicopter thing. He loves it. It even sounds like a real helicopter!!

Later on that same day we had a birthday party for Jesus at church

The pizza lady had wonderful timing-right in the middle of the Bible story


Nathaniel, Benjamin and Brenton chowing down


Samuel almost always sits close to his buddy Sophia


The girl table


Kavan wanted to sit all by himself


We played Pin the Star in the Sky


And ate a special cake. Notice the cake is round, like the world. And white. White stands for the purity of God. God is perfect and holy.


See the hearts? They represent God's love going all around the world.


Like the Star of David? Jesus was from the family of David. (there was later a candle in the middle of the star, showing how Jesus is the light of the world, but it did not make it into the picture)


Inside, the bottom layer (chocolate) represents the blackness of our sin. The middle layer (Red Velvet) represents the blood of Jesus. The top layer (white) represents our new life in Christ. Cool cake, huh???

So we attended two very different parties today. Afterwords, we came home and I wrapped Christmas presents while the boys played. Mark came into the room where I was (our bedroom) and asked when I wanted to tell the boys about Santa. We decided to do tonight. Now was a good time. So we called them into the room. We told that we hoped they had had a good day. They said they did. Benjamin said he liked the party at church better because it was about Jesus. So we told them we had to apologize to them about something. That we had been lying to them. They did not get upset. They did not freak out. As a matter of fact, Samuel looked at the presents I had been wrapping and "That longest present must be mine. I asked for a lightsaber with spikes and lightsabers are long so that one has to be mine." Then Benjamin figured out that while we had been in Wal-Mart earlier and Mark "had to go look at something" he was getting something without them seeing it. We have some sneaky kids.


The ugly cake: I had no idea what this was supposed to be until my sister looked at it and said "It's a chimney. See, Santa'a legs are sticking out of it." Wow, I thought I was the smart one!!


Benjamin came into my room wanting his picture made because he was looking all silly. He said "Maybe you should blog about this"


Samuel had to join in too. Word to ya mutha. Peace out, dawg!