And a good time was had by all

We had an awesome and busy Christmas break this year.

The girls were off last Wednesday from day care, so we had another "girls day" where we went swimming together at the gym and had lunch. Madeleine felt that she had put her face in the water enough during swimming that she had earned ice cream from "Berry's," so we stopped at Goodberry's on the way home despite it being only 50 degrees out.

For Christmas Eve we watched "Elf" and went to the 3:30 children's pageant Mass and then over to my parents for snacks and presents. Lily loved her new sweater.

Madeleine preferred the opening of presents to the gifts themselves.

Christmas morning the girls stayed in bed until 7, like we ask on other days. Then Lily rushed upstairs because she said she wanted to know what different types of wrapping paper Santa had used. Here Madeleine gets her princess on:

Lily shows her new favorite pajamas. We had outgrown all our other footed pajamas some time ago, and she has been sad about it for a long time.

Then after presents had been opened, we headed off to Oak Ridge to visit the Goodman grandparents. We spent two days there and had plenty of time to play princess, throw snowballs, and try out our new scooters.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Stir Crazy

Two major things happened this weekend. #1 - We are super-excited for Christmas. Our school party was Friday, and we were very, very excited to go and dress up for it. #2 - We didn't go anywhere or do anything Saturday because the weather sucked.





So - here we are looking pretty for our school party:




Then on Saturday, the girls decided to play surfer girls for most of the afternoon.

Sunday the weather was chilly, but sunny so we ventured out. Lunch at Bear Rock followed by the Princess and the Frog. Just before bed we visited the live nativity at Ephesus Baptist Church, and the girls had a great time.

Santa...again

The girls went to see him with their day care class at the mall today.

OK - slow with the blogging these days.

Too much going on. I'll try and catch up some this week. I promise ;)

Today the girls and I did some holiday baking, something I'd been trying to do for years. I saw this decorating kit in Martha Stewart Everyday and knew I had to have it. Found out today Williams-Sonoma makes one too.

So this morning we rolled out the sugar cookie dough. Lily was very into ths shapes once I let her pick out Halloween-related cutters. Christmas Witches were more exciting than bells and candy canes. Madeleine was more interested in eating the dough of course.

Then this afternoon we did the decorating. I used the Royal Icing recipe that came with the set. Aside from the girls putting on way too much icing, the I'd say it was a hit. I had to do the other million cookies after they got tired, but they lasted much longer this year.

Madeleine's

Lily's

Christmas Kick-Off

We kicked off the Christmas activities with a visit to Santa at the TMOTT Christmas party. As you can see, Lily came prepared with a list and a song she wanted to sing.

We had picked out their first live tree together the day before, and this is the first year the girls really got involved in decorating it. It was Madeleine's turn to put the star up on top.