our holiday card

i changed it up this year and did a one-hour photo card at cvs.  i thought it was on premium cardstock, but it was very low quality and disappointing in person.  oh well, live & learn!

i was, however, happy with the family photo we took, including the kitties and their amazing posing for the camera!! :-)

a very merry christmas

i was the first one up on christmas morning....so i sat and enjoyed some cocoa by the tree....and i took a look at what santa had left us in our stockings and on the hearth.

 after waking up, the girls put on their matching "opening gifts" attire....so cute!!

of course, daddy & i couldn't let the girls have ALL the matching fun....

i have learned to collect on promises first before handing out rewards....nice family picture first, THEN we open gifts!! :-)

i served up some egg quiche that i baked the day before, the girls helped themselves to cereal, so we would all have the needed fuel to open our gifts....

then, of course, we started on the gifts.....

for lunch, we had beef tips with gravy (cooked in my brand new dutch oven), green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, grilled veggies, and rolls.

merry christmas!!!

santa is the jam

the girls are in an odd size currently.  they are too big for "girls" and too small for "womens" sizes.  so lately it is a guess as to what may or may not fit them in regards to clothing.  i found these cute santa jammies online, but they are a bit too big.  oh well, better big so they can grow into them, right??

time to bake

even though i've been baking lots of cookies here & there since before thanksgiving, big sister really wanted me to make some of her favorites: hershey kiss & chocolate mint snow-top cookies.  so i recruited her into the kitchen with me today to get it done.

we'll need to work a little hard next time to make the red dough redder and green dough greener....i think it is cute how the cookies turned out polka-dotted!

double header

first up tonight at 5:30pm - little sister played basketball with her fellow lady lobos against the vipers.  grandma pat came to town especially to see her play, and she was not disappointed!  after specific coaching last week to take more shots, little sister ended up sinking a nice one to get her onto the scoreboard.  it was so fun to see!!  her team ended up earning the W, with the final score of 38-11.  awesome job, lady lobos!!

then we made our way to the high school where big sister was performing with the symphonic winds in her holiday concert at 7:00pm.  they played three songs.

christmas fanfares

the night before christmas

themes from "the nutcracker"

 

5th annual cookie bake n take

today i hosted my annual cookie bake n take party....and it took all day saturday to prepare for it.  (not to mention a few other random days of prep leading up to it...)

as usual, we had plenty of activities for the kids to do:

wine bottle decorating

paper crafting with stamps

and a fun edible mini hot cocoa treat!

the kids crafts turned out pretty cute.

meanwhile, the moms were in the kitchen baking & making....

 ...so that everyone could walk away with yummy treats!

 

and one mom made us all an awesome DIY sugar cookie decorating kit, complete with royal icing & sprinkles!!  can't wait to try that out!!