Bon Bon Cookies

On Saturday we spent the whole day in the kitchen. We started our morning at the grocery store. We needed more flour, powdered sugar and chocolate chips. Then it was home for some baking. I'm going to a cookie exchange this week and I'm bringing the bon bon cookies. There will be 10 other people there, so I needed at least 10 dozen cookies. Bon bons aren't hard to make, they're just time consuming. I finished my last cookie at 5:00, just in time for dinner. They still need the chocolate drizzle on the top, but we'll do that on Sunday afternoon. After smelling them all day you might think I would be tempted to taste one, but nothing yet. Perhaps after dinner tonight we'll take the first bite. Abby was a big helper. She made sure that the inside of each cookie had six chocolate chips. We made a huge mess in the kitchen. There was powdered sugar and flour all over the place. We made 12 dozen. That's 144 cookies! Here they are right after baking. Here they are! The finished cookies!! Yum!

Fun with the Girls

Friday night Abby and I went out with some friends. Abby was thrilled to hang out with Olivia, Marcy and Misha. We headed to the restaurant for some dinner, grilled cheese and chicken nuggets. Then it was off to do some painting. Abby painted a Christmas tree ornament and I painted a piggy bank for Abby. We can't pick them up until the end of next week, but when we get them I'll make sure to take some pictures. Here's a picture of Marcy and Abby tickling each other at Misha's house. It was an awesome evening!

Princess fun in the closet

Tonight Abby wanted to put on her princess outfit and her Barbie princess cowboy boots. She the proceeded to add all her necklaces and announced she was going to a party! When I found her to take her picture, she has the chairs all lined up in front of her closet, the dress and shoes on and the bears on the floor. Who would have thought that you could have a princess party in the closet? Sometimes imaginations are wonderful!!

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree!

Today Abby and I had a great day!! We ventured out in our blizzard weather to get our free tree from our realtors. The weather here is awful, it would have been a snow day, but of course it's SATURDAY!! Oh, well....

We went out for breakfast today and then off to the farm for the trees. Then it was home to set up the tree and to gaze upon it's glory! After four loads of laundry and a light house cleaning we had friends over for tacos and chocolate chip cookies. It's a night full of laughter and love! Here's Abby guarding our tree from the vicious hands of other tree seekers.

When we first arrived, we found our tree! It was the first one we looked at. Of course we couldn't find the first tree we looked at, so we set it off to the side and proceeded to navigate through the rest of the trees. But alas, we returned to our first tree. I guess it was truly love at first sight. Abby did her first snow angel. She had a great time just laying in the snow.

Since we were at the farm, there were LOTS of animals! Abby loved petting each and every one! She also enjoyed repeating back their animal noises. Can you just hear it now, "Moooo! Oink, Oink! Ba-a-a! and of course Ma-a-a-a! (that's the goat)

Abby was thrilled with her gingerbread man. She ate the head first! At the end of the tree searching adventure, we enjoyed gingerbread cookies, hot apple cider, and doughnuts. By that time, we were ready to warm up. While I set up the tree and fussed with the beautiful ribbon, Abby played with the nativity scenes. We have five different scenes. It's like Epcot, but on a smaller scale. We have a set from Guatemala, Ecuador, Haiti, Mexico and Israel. Don't forget that we do have a larger size Nativity set from Nana and Papa. HERE IT IS!!! PERFECTION!!

Dora Dancing Queen

Here's Abby having fun with her Dora Dancing Movie. She hasn't had it out in a while so she's loving it! :)

Goldfish and Milk

Tonight all we needed was a Strawberry Shortcake movie, some colored goldfish and a glass of milk. Here's a picture of Abby relaxing after a busy day. Nana said that she played hard today and that her mind was going a mile a minute. I also worked hard today so right now we're sitting in our chair together and just breathing with one another.
There's something relaxing about having your daughter right next to you in the big chair. Every once in a while she reaches over to hold my hand. I like the connected feeling. Can you just imagine how God must feel when we just sit together with him and when we reach out to hold his hand? When's the last time you just sat with your Heavenly Father?

Parade of Lights

Tonight we headed downtown for the Parade of Lights. We've never been to this parade before so we weren't sure what to expect. We were quite surprised! It was such a fun parade. Each and every vehicle (or person!) had strings of lights hanging from them. There were even real reindeer on the route. Several of my students from school were also there. It was a COLD night, so we were quite bundled up, but at least it wasn't snowing. It was a great night! Abby loves to ride on Papa's shoulders. She watched most of the parade from there and loved it. We loved all the lighted Christmas trees lining the streets. Here we are waiting for the parade to begin. We loved seeing our friends the VanTil family! They were in the parade and we waved and waved.