Decorating the Gingerbread House (12/23)

I bought a gingerbread house kit complete with premade house, icing and candy.  I bought one last year but this year we had a harder time with it.  Not sure why...

How many people does it take to build a gingerbread house? 

Meanwhile the kids are eying the bowls of candy and pleading, "Can I eat just one?!".

Doc engineers some support for the roof and then we finally think it's ready for decorating.

They carefully place their candy on the roof.  

One piece at a time.

Everyone helps and Mr Mustache feels the need to add reindeer poop on the roof (chocolate jimmies).

And there it is...our finished gingerbread house.

Afterwards we read some Christmas books.  The boys are really good at sitting still and listening to stories.  It's one of my favorite activities to do with them.

Christmas Town and Williamsburg

One night, while in Williamsburg, we went to the Busch Garden's Christmas Town.  Each section of the park was a different country and had themed rides and shows and decorations that pertained to that country and it's culture.  It was so beautiful and we all really enjoyed ourselves.  I was surprised at all the rides there were for kids Simon's age.

The entrance starts you off in England in what appears to be a village.  

We had the boys spend some time in the stocks there...it's funny because those signs fit them well!

We heard some carolers who were really very good.

Over in Italy, Joshua and Caleb got ready to ride their first amusement park ride.

I wish I could zoom in on Caleb's face here but this is one of Doc's pictures and I can't edit his.  But if you click on the picture it will enlarge it in another screen and then you can see what I am talking about.  He's got his mouth wide open!

The rest of the ride he has this face.  I felt so sorry for him!

 This was the expression Caleb wore the whole way down the walkway after getting off the ride.  He could have caught a lot of flies.  Josh liked the way it "tickled" his tummy!  He's the thrill seeker.

Simon rode his first ride with Caleb and Caleb said this was his favorite ride. 

Here are we are getting ready to ride another ride.  I got talked into going on this one. 

I think I was telling Troy that I was going to kill him if we made it off alive...

Riding another ride.

Nana rode this one with Simon.

Simon loves his Nana!

 There was a beautiful nativity as we were leaving Italy.

There were lights everywhere and here they put some on the train bridge.  I love the way it's reflected in the water too.

Simon and Caleb rode a mini version of the swing ride.  It was very tame but I think they enjoyed it.

It started getting too dark for pictures but here the kids flew bomber jets.  

There was a giant tree in Germany.

We rode a train all around the park and there were trees lit all along the way.  It was very pretty.  We also rode a carousel, and saw a Sesame Street show.  It was lots of fun and I hope we get to go back this year!

We also spent some time looking in the shops in historic downtown Williamsburg.  It has lots of charm and character. 

We visited a fun toy shop where the boys tried on Tricorn hats.  They were more interested in the guns though.

We really enjoyed our stay in Williamsburg and there is so much that we didn't get to do.  We will definitely be going back again.

Jamestown and Yorktown

The week before Christmas we spent a couple of days in the Williamsburg area with Doc and Nana, who flew in to do some sight seeing and spend Christmas with us.  We had a great time over there and we tried to do as much as we could in the short time we were there.  We didn't take the boys to colonial Williamsburg  because we thought they would not get to much out of it.  But we walked around the downtown area and looked in some of the shops.  We also spent an evening at The Busch Gardens Christmas Town and went to Jamestown Island and the Yorktown battlefield.  This post will just have pictures of Jamestown and Yorktown and there will be a second post with pictures of Busch Gardens and Williamsburg. There was so much history and the adults tried to absorb as much as we could with the little boys urging us on our way. 

Walking into the fort area.  There was a big monument there.

Simon took a little rest on the monument. 

At the beginning of our day the boys were willing to stop and pose for a little while. 

Nana and I with Pocahontas.

Daddy and his boys by the palisade-style fence.

Old Church with burial ground. 

Replica of barracks in the fort.

The boys can never resist playing with the cannons.

Doc and Troy posing with Captain John Smith.

This street is named Back Street.  We said they were the Back Street boys.  

This is the road we took to get to where the residential area was.

This was the Ambler house built by the Ambler family in 1750.  It was burned in two wars and then after a fire in 1895 it was abandoned.  It was the structure with the most still standing but it was probably the newest structure too.

An interesting tree. 

The boys liked to climb on the ruins...probably shouldn't have let them but it gave them something to do.

When Simon got tired of walking he got to ride "up top" and boss Dad around.

After walking around there we drove up to the Glass House to watch them do the old fashion glass blowing.  It was very interesting to watch and they made a lot of beautiful things.

A glass blower working on his piece. 

Starting on a new piece.

All the pretty glass.  Beautiful colors and some fun and functional pieces.

After the Glass House we drove over to Yorktown and visited the museum there and the battlefield.  

 There was a children's area that looked like part of a ship and it had a interactive exhibit there that talked about the battle.

 The canon on board the ship was "fired" repeatedly at the enemy.

More cannons on the battlefield.

"Over the ramparts we watched..."

The highlight of their time at Jamestown and Yorktown was getting to play with the cannons.