The Gingerbread Man

         Today is Christmas Eve and it was so much fun! It made be sleepy when I got home but it was worth it with the children. I also didn't get much of the chores done but I wouldn't trade it for the world. I did so many Christmasy things with them it was so fun.
          First, I started the Christmas Eve day by painting the girls' fingernails. I had green and red nail polish with gold glitter over the colors if they wanted it. I painted the preschoolers' and the toddlers' nails. It was so cute because one of the toddlers seem to know what I was doing because she sat so still while I was painting them. After I was done with hers, she just laid her hand flat on her legs to let them dry. It was also cute at first because when she saw the polish, she took off one of her socks because she wanted her toes painted first but I didn't pain them because they were still painted. She "picked" the green polish, which I thought was neat too.
          Neat, we mixed some dough to make gingerbread man cookies because I had a teddy bear that told us the recipe for it. I put the dough in the cold for a hour like it said. It didn't get hard at all so during nap time I added some more flour and a gingerbread mix and it turned out prefect. As the children woke up one by one, I would let them help me patted it out and then they got to use the cookie cutters on their own to make cookies. They had a blast doing it. There was a smile on each their faces and some laughter too. It was also a mess when we patted it out on the table because I put flour down first so it wouldn't stick too bad. It did stick a little but not too bad. I had one little child play in the flour while I was getting it to where he could make the cookie. Before I left the place, it smelled like Christmas. There was gingerbread smell all over the place.
            I had the two older girls mix the cookie dough and listen to my teddy bear say the recipe and they really enjoyed that. Then when a child would get up from nap I would let them cut some cookies out before they would go watch a movie. Three children got the chance to cut some out before the dough was all gone. The children got to eat the gingerbread man cookies for afternoon snack. Before they ate them, though, they got to decorate them with icing.
            Then before lunch, I helped the children string some jingle bells on a string so they could wear it as a bracelet. They had fun with those too. Not very many children could put the bells on the string so I had to help most of them but one of the children did it all by himself and I was really surprised that he could do it at all.
            It kept me really busy today but I loved every moment of it. It made the day go by faster so I could go home sooner but mostly it made me smile because I know the children enjoyed it. They wanted to do everything. It is for sure a Christmas Eve for me to remember. I try to make it happy for the children. Try to do things that they would do at a good home or stuff I did at my home or would want to do with my own children because right now they are my children. I'm so blessed that I got to work during the morning this Christmas Eve. Working on nights were just too busy and too hard to do things for the children but now I feel like I have a lot more time to do just that. I have that time to spend one on one with each of them.
            It was a true Christmas Eve after all! I hope and pray that I made a difference in those children' lives even if it was just for today and only today.