New Years Day 2015

Love this little snowman....

candy sleigh & gingerbread man

Holidays are filled with activities and traditions that are educational.  Even when we aren't doing formal lessons we are learning and growing. One of our New Year's holiday traditions is to make gingerbread houses.  This year we decided to make them using graham crackers. We have wonderful memories of friends making them with us different years.  Like the year Adam brought candy "stones" to make chimneys and rock work on our houses. But this year it was just us....   The girls studied ideas online, purchased some candy, made the frosting glaze and glued the crackers together last night.  While they dried and we waited for the New Year to come in we listened to an audio version of Voyage of the Dawn Treader. This morning when the breakfast dishes were done, we were ready to spread the table with houses and candy.  Then the creativity began. 

finished gingerbread houses on display

We had enough houses for a second display

After the gingerbread houses, we worked on making Lefse.  It didn't turn out perfectly but it tasted wonderful and we had lots of fun and laughs....  

Then it was time to go out sledding.  There was a nice dusting of snow last night so we filled some tubes and headed for the hill.  It's unusual to have this little snow here this time of year, but it is certainly cold enough for January. 

Not much snow, but enough for tubing....

Going down in a train - hang on!

climbing back up for another run

It's a long hill to climb but worth if for another ride down...

The only things left on our to-do list for New Year's Day 2015 besides eating a nice dinner together is to watch our video of The Gospel According to Scrooge and to listen to more of the audio book, The Silver Chair which we just started last night.  Looks like the year is off to a wonderful start!!