Holiday Cookies and Decorating...

On Sunday, Dec. 12th...we all gathered at my mom's to decorate the tree and bake cookies. My mom made some AWESOME veggie "beef" stew for us. Thanks Mom!

The kiddos had a lot of fun playing and visiting with each other. It isn't often that my brother Bryan and his family come over...so they always enjoy playing together!

Liam loves to play air hockey with Jai!

I was in charge of the baking. Everyone else helped the kids decorate the tree, and take pictures. (Thanks Chrissy for doing the photographs!)

My mom let me borrow her lovely apron! :)

Bryan and Zachary

Miss Mary Catherine

Zachary and Andrew

All of the grandbabies...it is VERY rare to get a picture of them all together and looking in the same direction. Haha!

Goofy Faces! I love how Jai looks like he is about to attack!

Cookie Time!

Zach and Andrew's cookies...

One of Gracie's...

Jai would put a couple dots of icing on, then lick it off...then some on, and back off...

Gracie made one for me!

Gracie's demonic snowman...haha!

We put a bowl of icing in front of Jai...and he said "can you get me a spoon?" (he thought we would totally let him eat it)

My (un-creative) creation!

Time for ornaments and decorations (thanks CC)

Gracie had a party on Friday as a celebration for wrapping up their play..."Magical Flute" by Mozart. I tried to take pictures, but I only had my cell phone and it took terrible pictures. I am ordering a DVD of the play, and will post it on here once it comes. It was great! They did a wonderful job. Her plays at school always remind me of the ones in the movies, very artistic and so much fun to watch! They have amazing props and music, etc. Anyways, they had a "cast party" and I was asked to bring a sweet. I threw together some cupcakes because we weren't expecting to have school (due to ice). Her class loved them and she was pretty proud of her mommy! :)

O Krishna's Tree...

On Friday, we finally got around to decorating the tree. Our living room and dining room lighting makes for the worst pictures...but I wanted to share anyways. The kiddos had so much fun decorating. We turned on the fake "Yule Log" fireplace (thanks Time Warner) on the t.v. and played some fun holiday music. I made the kiddos some warm cocoa...and we got busy decorating.

The kids love watching the little ice skaters skate around the ice village...

This is our little elf that we got from Hallmark last year. He is so adorable. He plays music and taps his little elf feet. The kids play with this ALL the time. I hope they have more this year. You can attach others to the side...and they will all dance together. Cute! :)

On Saturday, we hear that Santa would be visiting Reynolda Village! I am not a fan of visiting Santa at the mall, and paying 20$ for a terribly printed picture. Yeah right!

So, we took Christian (our nephew) and the kiddos and went to see him. We only had to wait maybe 3 minutes. So awesome!

HOWEVER, we were expecting a little more of a "north pole" type set up. Instead it was a concete slab room with Santa, his chair, and tree in the middle. Gracie took off her coat and said "this was not at all what I was expecting" hahaha! She was quite disappointed.

Jai had been so excited about seeing Santa! He kept telling me all of these things that he was going to ask for, and say to him. Once the time came and Santa asked him what he wanted...he said "I don't know"....and that was about it. Haha...

Gracie asked for Magic Fabric...

Christian was pretty shy also...

haha....love this picture!

He was whispering things in Santa's ear and I didn't get to hear what he asked for...

Santa gave the kiddos a treat coupon for something at the shop next door called "Simply Yummy"...and it turned out to be a marshmallow treat! :( My kiddos don't eat Marshmallows...so we took them to get some ice cream instead. They didn't mind. ;-)

Each year, we go on a trip to the mountains for the tree with my mom and stepdad. It's been a tradition since Gracie was born. We had it scheduled for Sunday, Dec. 12th...but the forecast was calling for 100% precipitation. :(

My mom had planned instead on driving to the mountain to get a fresh tree, so that we could just all get together and decorate, bake cookies, etc....BUT...while we were at Reynolda Village, they had trees! We opted for one of those. It's sad that we won't be able to go this year, but at least we will still all get together and have fun decorating and all that jazz.

We went to AC Moore afterwards, and the kiddos were able to do some crafts that they had set up. They loved that. They decorated snowman masks, train cars, and had a great time. We were happy to be able to spend some time with Mr. Christian. He is such a good kid! Thanks Rita for letting him hang out with us for a bit!