Claire's Gingerbread Birthday Party

Today we celebrated Claire's birthday with her friends.  It was a sensational gingerbread party!

We decorated gingerbread men. . .

Made gingerbread ornaments. . .

and gingerbread aprons!

Then we got to work on gingerbread houses built around pint sized cartons.
It was fun to see everyone's creativity!  What messy, messy fun we had!

This is Claire's classmate Abigail.  I learned today that Abigail is from Hunan Province China as well.  And not only that, but she is from Yueyang City like Claire.  I got teary just hearing that.  Abigail's mom relayed the sweet story that after the first day of school, Abigail came home and told her mom, "there is a new girl at school and she looks just like me!"  Yueyang friends.  My heart melted!

Claire has such a sweet group of friends.  They were delightful!

After decorating, we played a book exchange game.  Each girl brought a wrapped Christmas book.  I read the Christmas nativity story which was written with lots of "lefts" and "rights" in it.  Each time they heard those words, they passed the book around the circle in the coresponding direction.  When the story ended, they opend the book they were holding and got to take it home. . .along with all their gingerbread fun!