Christmas in Helen Take 1

My parents used there timeshare points and got a place in Helen, Ga the week before Christmas. We left Sunday afternoon and headed that way for 5 day Christmas vacation. Anytime I have been to Helen it has been in the summer. They are known for there German town atmosphere and the tubing. Obviously, we could not participate in the tubing portion. To my surprise, it was extremely quieter than in the summer. There was not alot to do but we spent time together and that is what was most important. Here are activities we came up with during our stay in Helen. They kids enjoyed playing on the playground.

You can't go to Helen without tasting some of the German cuisine.

My dad and grandmother. She is German and was born in Germany. If you remember from a previous post, we were doing Christmas around the world. Germany was the last place we traveled to. We took advantage of my grandmother being there and had her explain what Christmas is like in Germany.

Laney with our German waiter.

We walked around the town admiring the Christmas decor and shopping. My sister purchased this head piece for Ella. She wore it all over town.

They had horse carriage rides to show you the town. We opted to walk.

Since Helen is no Disney, I brought crafts for the kids to do. As you can see the adults wanted to do them as well. We made ball ornaments. Thanks to this old light fixture we had a place to hang them.

My grandmother was the first to sit down when I called out craft time.

We made these glitter ornaments and painted gingerbread men( not pictured).

We went to the local area Swanee and visited museums, waterfalls, covered bridges, pottery shop, old store and shops.

We ate alot and snacked alot, played games and even made time to accessorize with my grandmother's wig

It's a girl!

We could not pass up the opportunity to visit the Cabbage Patch Hospital last week since it was so close to Helen, Ga. While we were there the Doctor was called in because a baby needed to be delivered. The baby was delivered by C section( cabbage section).

A beautiful baby girl

They had Cabbage Patches of all ages. There were newborns.

There were babies all nestled in cabbages.

There were older babies.........

that liked to play Duck Duck Goose.

We enjoyed our visit to the hospital. We even adopted a couple while we were there.

Santa stopped by on the way to the mall

Santa came to our house a little early this year and surprised me with this. He was going to wait until Christmas Day but saw me diligently working on a scrapbook surprise. I guess he thought having this would make it a whole lot easier and quicker. THANK YOU SANTA!!!

Our visit to Australia

Last week we traveled to the land down under Australia in our Christmas Around the world unit. We discussed how they celebrate a warm Christmas on the beach or swimming. They are multicultural so many of their traditions come from other countries. A few interesting facts. They have Boxing Day on Dec 26. This is the part of Christmas Spirit giving. They leave Lamingtons for Santa which is a cake covered with frosting and coconut. We did not have enough time last week to make this and to be honest I did not want to add to the over abundance of sweet things in this house. We did however make Christmas Crackers. Again, we made the easier version. We took toilet rolls, filled them with treats, covered them in Christmas wrapping and tied ribbon on each end. Come back later as I share this weeks adventures of France. Next week it is off to Germany.

Party at Granny's

This past Saturday we traveled to north Georgia to my Aunt's house for the annual Stowe Christmas party. We ate and then played dirty Santa. Always a treat to see what will be fought over. This year it was the money and gift cards which is better than a few years ago when it was the case of beer. Yep! You heard that right. Here is my grandmother with Griffin, Laney, my grandmother, Emma, our dog Chewy and my aunt's dog Scooter. Ella is back into her, "I don't like to take pictures" phase so she was not in it. Granny's got a brand new wig. Isn't that a line in a song?

Carmel and my cousins boy

Mom talking to Emma

Me and my twin sisters

us with my mom

One of the dirty Santa gifts was this glass sun catcher wreath. Griffin ended up with it. For some reason, nobody stole it from him.HAHA! Ella loved it so she took it off his hands. Look, she turned it into something other than a wreath. Isn't she an angel?

Laney is big time into taking care of babies. She has given me the okay to have another baby but only if it is a girl. The other day the kids were fighting over what I was having next. I tried to explain to them I was not pregnant so the fight was useless. They ignored me and kept fighting so I gave myself a timeout in my room.

Checking out her new nails while holding the baby.

Ella got a Dora toothbrush holder

Winter Wonderland 2009

GVA(the curriculum we use) had a Winter Wonderland 2009 Celebration this past Friday. If you chose to, you could decorate a gingerbread house to bring to the celebration. There were three levels gingerbread (which was the one we chose. It was the least involved.), peppermint and crystal. Here are the kids decorating it. I gave them all the supplies and let them do it all. Griffin did most of it, Laney did one side and gave up, Ella as you can see in the picture mostly licked and ate the candy.

The finished house.

Laney and her house before we went in.

Laney and Ella had to stand in front of their house and tell a little about themselves and their house. Laney said she lives in Crestview( she was slightly nervous), 2nd grade and she liked the candy on her house. Ella said she lived in Ga, 4 years old and liked eating the candy. This was the crystal level. This was by far the best one. She had to do a house, a picture journal and an essay. She did a replica of her own house. You cannot tell in the picture much but her house was lit up on the inside and around the gate. I guess some people are just not as busy as we are around the holiday season.

Laney won a prize in her division for one of the 4 best gingerbread houses. She received an ornament, certificate, pen and bookmark.