Christmas Cookies

Each Christmas, we try to decorate cookies. Each year, I try to streamline the process. 

I'm getting better at it I think!

Less is better in Isaac's world.

Dad jumped in this year. It seems he gets sucked in a little more each year.

Gumdrops and Gingerbread

The gumdrop tree has been a family tradition ever since I was a little girl and probably beyond that. The boys enjoy this each year. It is fun watching how both the boys are able to participate finally.

Joe brought his "Magic Elf Seeds" again this year.

This year, the seeds yielded snowman and Santa Claus cookies.

Gingerbread house decorating.

More eating than decorating.

December In Review

With moving a few short weeks ago, it has been a different kind of Christmas around here. I still feel a little "rushed." We had the house beautifully decorated for everyday life for one day (Thanksgiving), then we took everything down and replaced it with our Christmas decor. It has been a fun time around here, I just wish I didn't feel so rushed to do everything. Maybe next Christmas will be a little different.

Here's a brief run-down of what we were into this December...

Sam decided to journal with our elf, Joe. Asking him questions every day.
Joe would write back to him.

Classic Sam...always talking :-)

New Christmas pajamas!!!

Sam's Christmas party at school. Gingerbread house decorating.

Brothers.

Christmas festival at church.

November...A Blur

November is kind of a blur to me at this point. All I know is that we prepared and prepared, made lots of stuff, closed on our house, painted lots of stuff, hung lots of stuff and now have a beautiful home that we can call our own once again!

Mom made us some beautiful curtains for our living room. I did help by ironing
and carrying the material from one place to another :-)

November 8, 2013

Painting our dining room.

We painted the morning room.

Dad painted our garage.

I made MANY trips to Home Depot and took a lot of pictures like this and texted a
message like this "Is this what you need?"

The movers came and went.

I unpacked an undisclosed amount of boxes!!

Our SIX Year Old!

Where did time go???? My baby boy turned six today! I'm so glad we were able to do a special celebration at Disney with him last month. This one at our house was a little less than spectacular. We have no furniture, no refrigerator, no official bed for the boys to sleep in. We did have pizza at Sam's request and mom picked up some cupcakes from the store for us. It was very low-key, but still great!

Halloween 2013

I fear the days of being able to coordinate my boy's Halloween costumes are about over. For Halloween Isaac wanted to be Jake from "Jake and the Neverland Pirates." I tried my hardest to get Sam to be Captain Hook or someone else that would work well. He decided he should be a ninja instead. Who was I to argue?

Trunk or Treat at church. Look carefully, the ninja is camoflauged.

Sam preferred to sort his candy first.

Isaac just started eating right away.

Sam's "pumpkin day" at school. He got to carve a pumpkin with his group (actually I carved it
and the kids voted on if it should be a scary, happy or sad pumpkin). They voted on scary.
I'm not sure I conveyed that or not. It was the best I could do!

Halloween night was cold and stormy....no trick or treating.
Instead, we FINALLY carved our pumpkin.

Sam really got into taking the "guts" out.

 

Isaac wanted NOTHING to do with the jack-o-lantern.

The night after Halloween. Dueling swords.

We went trick or treating in the neighborhood on November 1st
because the weather was so bad the night before.