Christmas Day

First off, 

Happy Birthday Grandma Sackett!!!!! 

Hope you have a great day.

Now, here's more pictures for my Picture a Day Book for December. 

The girls growling at Grams and 'Rhondar' was the funniest part of the day, in my opinion. 

Look at how funny this is to them!

 Or perhaps, the new board game Kate brought.... very entertaining.

Back to the Christmas Countdown

Day 23 - Cheaters, all of them!

Day 24 - Benedict Gift opening and William's 1st Birthday

Enjoying a nie cup of coffee

The kids enjoying volume two of Grams year in review albums.

 Look at him motoring away!

 Who's that playing with Jada's remote control car???

 Yummy!!!

 A fantastic birthday feast.

Jada and Gracie showed William how to play with his new gifts. 

What a fun day!

Layouts

I have a backlog of layouts and need to sort through the rest of our trip photos before I can post any, so here's something for you to look at while I work...

Gracie and her Bestie, Berlyn:

Gracie and some of my friend's kids:

Hunting for Easter eggs at Grams and Papa's:

Trying on lifejackets at the lake:

Tis the Season for Decorations

These are two of my new favourites. The centrepiece is made of Christmas decorations that I got last year after Christmas, (the balls, pears, and a divine feather wreath - unfortunately, you can't see it well from this angle) pinecones from some old potpourri, a cheap-o vase from Value Village and a neat brown, leather-looking plate my mom gave me. 

Happiness on a platter. 

This is a card holder that I made out of an old, hardcover book. I made a few of these for the sale and I had one left over, so it became mine. 

Of course, Gracie's new Advent Calendar is another favourite, but it got a whole post to itself,  awhile back. 

I am all caught up on my little mini Christmas album and when I closed it tonight, it made me do a little happy dance (very little, everyone else is in bed, and I all ready think I may be going a little crazy, I don't need the neighbours to have evidence). 

This is a great project. It makes me think about Christmas every day and captures all of the little things that go on in our household. 

I'm definitely in the Christmas Spirit this year! 

Fa La La La La La La La La!

Decorating Cookies

Gracie and I decorated all 8 dozen cookies today! Wowza!

She was very diligent at first. 

This is the exact moment she realized this was icing... Why was it going on the cookie when it could go  directly into her mouth??

Some of the finished masterpieces and the Cookie Artist.

Apron Buddies. Gracie tested the cookies and gave them a resounding "Deeelishous!'

*****

 Batch two started off well.

 I convinced her not to lick the spatula and gave her a brush to paint on the icing.  

Then, I realized the icing was being painted on the counter. 

Gracie's beautiful, delicious cookies! Notice they are sprinkled with dinosaurs, race cars, and every colour of sprinkles under the rainbow. These are cookies for all seasons.

Legislature Lights

We visited the Legislative Grounds today to see all the Christmas trees lit up. It was really pretty. Even had a bit of snow to make it feel more like Christmas.

Don't you LOVE my new camera?? I do. These were all taken without flash and held by hand!!! Awesome!

Chinese Martha Stewart

I love baking and Gracie is such a big help, I thought we'd stay home from strollersize this morning and get some Christmas baking done!

Here's my Primo egg cracker, preparing for a pitch.....

And, Bam! into the bowl it goes!

Oh yes, and she's wearing a toque for phase one of this production...

Preparing to roll out the dough...

(Note: she is now wearing her apron and no toque) 

 The flour is good and spread...

I actually get dough!!

Who needs the rolling pin now that there's dough?

 Hands are so much better!

Now that I cleared the whole morning to make cookies, I doubled the recipe. 

Might as well make lots, I thought.... Gracie loves making cookies, I thought.... nope. Today, she didn't have the patience. I made 8 dozen freakin' sugar cookies and she stayed for 6.... Not 6 dozen. 

Six cookies.

Luckily, she had tons of new toys to distract her, so I cracked through the rest by myself while she played. With just two batches left, she got bored, so I turned on a 20 minute video and she learned Chinese (really, she loves this cartoon where they teach the kids Chinese).

Not bad, just not the morning I expected.

And, if you were thinking, "My these photos look nice," they do!! They were taken with my new Christmas present! 

Even unedited, they look so much better than my old camera's pictures. It wasn't entirely my fault! Hooray!