Merry Christmas 2010

HOPE YOURS WAS AS MERRY AS OURS!

Christmas Sugar Cookie Decorating 2010

We just got home from 5 hours of sugar cookie decorating - a time honored family tradition. This year my family, my in laws and my sister's new in laws all came and we had a blast!!

This year mom made corn chowder and fish stew along with two delicious salads. We ate lunch and then got to work cutting out cookies, decorating cookies, and eating cookies!

Dad, Mark, Ryan, and Ryan got to try out Dad's newly built horseshoe pit and once we all got done decorating we gathered around the baby grand piano to sing Christmas carols.

Mom also got each of us a decorative cookie box to bring home our cookies in :)

School Christmas Parties

Both of the kiddos had their class Christmas Parties on the same day at around the same time! Got to hit the beginning of Little Miss's party this morning and the end of Little Man's party.

Lots of sugar, snacks, crafts, and book exchanges ~ we are officially out for the year!

Fa La La La La ...

Okay - so I know it's too early but it was such a nice day out today (and it's fixing to get COLD) that we decided to put up our Christmas lights this afternoon (We didn't light them though!!).

The kids helped get out the lights, stakes, and Santa on the tractor and we got to work. It took us most of the afternoon but we had a lot of fun doing it together!

Gingerbread Houses 2009

GINGERBREAD HOUSES 2009

We decided to try out Gingerbread House decorating this year. I bought two kits from Joann's because I heard that they were the best. Ryan made the houses the night before Christmas but today was the first day that I thought we might actually have time to decorate them :) The icing was a lot trickier than I expected. It was a learning process for us all but we made do and ended up with some pretty fabulous gingerbread houses!

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 2009

It snowed on Christmas Eve in Texas! Apparently is hasn't snowed here on Christmas Eve since somewhere around 1923. It was beautiful!

Ryan and I had fun hanging out on the deck in the blowing snow. We also took Little Dog for a walk as a family and froze our butts off ~ it was COLD!!

Christmas Day was wonderful. We had too many presents as usual :) but at least it was less than last year. Year after year we are getting bigger "toys" but less of them which I like.

After opening presents we hung around the house and did some cleaning up because our family came over for Christmas Dinner around 6 pm. Ryan and I cooked salmon, barley risotto with asparagus, and fresh green beans with pine nuts. It was delicious and a very light dinner which was nice so that our stomachs weren't so stuffed when we opened up all of the presents from our family. My parents, Ryan's parents, my sister, and Ryan's brother and sister in law were here this year and we had a blast!

As I look back on the evening I realized that I only took 5 pictures all day and the ones I took I took in the morning. We were so involved with talking, catching up, and having a great time that we didn't really think about taking pictures :)

Christmas Cookie Decorating 2009

Our biggest family tradition: Christmas Cookie Decorating

Every year the entire family gets together and decorates Christmas sugar cookies. This year was no different. My parents, in-laws, sister (and her boyfriend, Ryan), me, Ryan, and the kids, and my brother in law, Denver, all got together today to continue the tradition.
I made sugar cookie dough and peanut butter kiss cookie dough, my mom made two recipes of sugar cookie dough, my mother in law brought sugar cookie dough, and my sister brought sugar cookie dough. My mom made Corn Chowder and my dad made his famous Chili and we chowed down on lunch before we set to decorating hoping that maybe lunch would fill us up and we wouldn't eat so much cookie dough .
We cranked up the Christmas music (Amy Grant and Clay Aiken) and got into the cookie making spirit by singing loudly and eating a lot of icing :)
Little Miss and Little Man truly had a wonderful time this year although halfway through Little Man was looking a little "over sugared" because he had eaten so much cookie dough and sampled a little too much homemade icing! Little Miss really got into it this year and did a fabulous job decorating her cookies.
All in all we made and decorated 108 sugar cookies!

Here are some pictures I took with my iPhone.
We forgot to bring our camera so as soon as I get copies of some of the best, I'll post them :)

Little Miss's Kindergarten Christmas Party

Little Miss had her class Christmas Party today. Oh what an event it was. There were balloon centerpieces and Christmas table clothes, crafts galore, food, and a book exchange. And she got to wear her pajamas to school today! I think that was her favourite part :)

This morning they had Fireside Reading with her teacher and then the Christmas party was this afternoon at 2 pm. I showed up with Little Man (in his pajamas as well) and helped to set up and get everything ready for the kiddos.

The kids came in and set to making their crafts. They coloured wooden ornaments, decorated foam bell shapes, and made jingle bell necklaces. Then they feasted on cheese cubes, pretzel sticks, cupcakes, grapes, strawberries, and hot chocolate. During all of the hoopla, each kid got to go and pick out one of the wrapped books in the library (each child had brought a wrapped book to give).

Little Miss and Little Man had a blast and I got a couple of cupcakes to each as well (anyone who knows me well knows that that is the most important thing :) ).