Christmas GOodies

Right before Christmas break, each child in Emma's second grade class was asked to do a project on how he or she celebrates the Winter holidays. She has children from MANY different cultures and backgrounds in her class such as Jewish, Indian, Phillipino, Christian, and Muslim. She wrote a page that she presented to the class on what we celebrate in our family and she took many photos of the symbols of Christmas such as the star on our tree, our nativity set, angels, etc. Then she explained how each symbol relates to God and Christ such as how the candy cane represents the Shepherd's staff and that God is Shepherd who seeks after us as His sheep. She explained that we give gifts because God gave us the gift of His son Jesus Christ. And how we have lights on the tree because Jesus is the light of the world. There were many examples and all on her own she ended with saying that we need to try to keep His commandments so we can return and live with Him again. She included the photo below 3 times in her report which was all her idea. It truly brought tears my eyes and made my heart so proud. I told her what a missionary she was with that project and how special she was! It wasn't even planned! But hey, some of the best missionary experiences seldom are, right?

We also made lots of sugar cookies for her class. It was super fun!

Another thing Emma did that really impressed me had to do with a certain boy named Kenny. Kenny is tough to get along with sometimes. I know because I'm a yard duty and I see it. He is often involved in conflict at school. Emma becomes frustrated with him and comes to tell me about it at recess. On the evening before the last day of school before break, she was talking about how annoying he was, etc. I encouraged her to treat him as Jesus would and to try to make him feel GOOD about himself because he may be really struggling and that's why he's acting that way. A few minutes later she was making him a card that said, 

"Kenny ROCKS! I'm SERIOUS! Love, Emma." 

Then she wrapped it in wrapping paper. It was so sweet. I told her she did the right thing and that Kenny will feel soooo good!

We also made these cute cupcakes (I found the idea on Pinterest) for Brooke's class. They were a big hit!