Creative Christmas

Pepper spends most of her Christmas break each year creating.  Here is an early creation;  I did not think to date it at the time, but I'm pretty sure she was 5 or 6 years old when she built it.  I'm thinking 5 actually; that was the year of the Popsicle Viking ship and the Popsicle stick Noah's ark, so that would make age 5 about right. (The mushroom bird was added later.)

For the last several years, she's been in Sculpey mode at Christmas.  Last year she made a lovely kneeling Virgin Mary and a creche with baby Jesus.  The creche suffered an unfortunate collapse this year, though nothing compared to the gingerbread baby-crushing creche from Table for Nine.  Still, Mary is moving, so we posed her by the big nativity after the accident.

This year, Pepper has been on a mission to raise money for her school's art program.  She came up with the idea to make handmade cards and offer them for a donation (a dozen for suggested $10-15 donation).  She's raised $60 so far and had a load of fun.

It's two days before Christmas.  Mom-o-5 has a million things to do but went with Dear Hubby to the gym for a little exercise/stress relief session.  Of course a quick trip to the grocery store was needed on the way home.  We walked in 2 hours later to find she had made dinner.  And what a dinner it was: Chicken Parmesan (all homemade), salad, and fried mozarella for the Littles.  She even made the marinara sauce.  It was fantastic.  I'm so glad she has inherited my love of creating in the kitchen!  Sorry - did not think to take photos.

Oh -- and she made homemade bagels for tomorrow's breakfast (Christmas Eve); she knew I'd be busy.  Merry Christmas to me!