Easy have, cozy life

 

Yesterday afternoon/evening we made valentine cookies. Jeff made the dough and baked them, we all decorated, and then of course we all ate. And had leftovers to share with my knitting group today, and more leftovers that Jeff will share with his dungeons and dragons group tomorrow. Cookies are good 🍪🩷❤️🤍🩷

This weekend we also put up a new shower caddy, which I ordered online. It shipped In a box with the slogan “easy have, cozy life” printed on the outside. I like it. I want that to be my new motto 😄

Cold nights, warm cats

 A few nights ago the kids and I made a fire in our fire pit while Jeff was off dungeoning and dragoning.

It has been quite cold for here, and also clear and sunny, so we decided to head out to the backyard and look at the stars for a while. The kids cozied up to the fire and wore blankets. We didn’t stay out too long –it was a school night and we had to respect bedtime – but it was a fun little adventure.

And inside, we always have warm cats:

Keeping them guessing

 We don’t do elf on the shelf, but we do have an advent calendar. It is wooden, with little doors for each day, and we can put whatever we want behind each door. Most often we put in a small chocolate (actually two - one for each kid), but we also often put in a little tag saying things like “put up Christmas tree” or “hot chocolate” or “bake cookies.” We try to be a little bit predictable and boring so the expectations are not too high, while at the same time throwing slight curveballs to make it interesting. 

Last week Jeff decided to fill one of the little boxes with mini marshmallows, so they would pour out when the kids opened the door. They were surprised and delighted 😁 

Elves

 Yesterday we got our Christmas tree. We went to a farm in a small town/rural area about a 25 minutes drive from here, where we picked out our tree and they cut it for us and brought it back to our car on a sled. When we went into their little building to pay, they gave us hot chocolate and gingerbread muffins, and also gave the kids candy canes and gumballs and little plastic gingerbread people and little stuffed star ornaments. The building had all kinds of antique Christmas things that were very festive. Definitely got us all into the Christmas spirit!

Today we decorated the tree, after putting it up and putting the lights on yesterday. Maren and Linden were helpful and also took lots of breaks, during some of which they put decorations on sleeping cats:

My sweet little elves!

Two pictures

 Between us, Jeff and I managed just two photos this week. Kids with cat:

And Kids on a hike:

There really is plenty to report: Thanksgiving and days off of school along with a break from work, many pies including Thanksgiving pumpkin pies and a mini apple pie from the few wormy apples that we harvested from our brand new tree, putting up our first Christmas lights and wreath, enjoying some time outdoors, and all the other things. 

We are headed into our last week of classes, then we have finals week and a bit of a sigh of relief after that!