The Christmas season is in full swing at our house this week.  We have had a couple Christmas theme meals.  One was Christmas tree quesadillas:

And one was English muffin reindeer (they didn't look all that great but the boys really liked them).

We also had some Christmas theme pasta...a random find at Big Lots.  It was a tri-color pasta in star, Santa and Christmas tree shapes.  The boys have been very excited with their Christmas meals.

Gavin received a letter from Santa in reply to his wish list.  This was also very exciting!  Gavin promptly wrote a thank you note to Santa to leave next to the fireplace on Saturday evening.  He is finally starting to sound out words and try to spell them correctly rather then just writing gibberish!  I'm very excited about this development!  He wrote a whole sentence himself and only left out the 'n' in Santa but spelled the rest of the words correctly.

Today was a super exciting, hard-to-contol-ourselves type of day at our house.  It is Gavin's birthday so he knew we were having his 'real' birthday party this evening.  I made Christmas cookies this morning which the boys got to taste test for me.  They even got to lick the batters of the mixer when I was making molasses cookies!  In short, they were super excited and full of sugar...

This afternoon Gavin went to a cookie decorating party at a friend's house...yet another excitement.  Our phone was ringing every few minutes with calls to wish Gavin happy birthday and we had two neighbors stop by and bring more cookies and treats for us, even more excitement.  Needless to say, we have a lot of cookies in the house right now and two very tired boys (and mom).

Gavin did get his birthday party.  We had baked macaroni and cheese, steak and green beans (Gavin's request).  Then he got to open presents.  Usually he only gets a few presents on his birthday but this year he had quite a few for some reason.  And, apparently he likes military stuff because everything was related to the military except for an 'I Spy' memory game our neighbor brought over.

But, he got seven or eight books about knights and Vikings.  Mostly chapter books for us to read before bed.

He got some more Civil War soldiers to go with the ones he got this summer.  These ones came with cannons!  He's been saving his money to get more when we go back to that toy store next summer.

He got $6 cash!

He got a few 12 inch G.I. Joes that have realistic uniforms and weapons from different wars.

And, what he declared the 'best gift ever' a Lego Medieval Village set, complete with working mill and animals.  I was kind of surprised he liked this so much since he hasn't really gotten into Lego but he was really excited about it.

And, because there aren't enough cookies in the house, he got a cookie birthday cake.  I wasn't going to do anything for dessert, just let him eat Christmas cookies, but then I started to feel bad about not having a cake (even though I made him a birthday cake for his party a couple weeks ago).

Austin always appreciates the cake!

That has been our week in a nutshell.  We've been reading Christmas books, listening to Christmas music and enjoying the time off from school and running around.