makin' cookies

well...here we go. catching up on christmas blogging! as i was snacking on my last christmas cookie last night (sniff, sniff), i thought i'd start with our fun cookie day with gram a few weeks ago.

whooo's ready to make cookies?! "meeeeeeeee!"



amelia was thrilled to help stir the baking powder into the flour. after about 10 minutes of stirring, i can assure you that the baking powder and the flour were completely blended together.


the kids' favorite part! (mine too!)


time to cut some cookies!


ethan and caroline were much more independent with the cookie making this year. they had fun pressing down (or banging down) the dough.


ethan got really good at rolling the dough out too.


brilliant me thought that amelia would be pacified with playing with play-doh while the kids cut out cookies. um, no. she just ate it. (why not? the kids were sneaking bites of their dough?!)


so i moved on to pretzels to keep her happy. this worked for a while. but a bag of pretzels is only so big.


cutting out trees


amelia really wanted a cookie...


after the cookies baked, it was naptime... so we took a break and were ready to ice them a couple hours later! we had a lot of cookies to ice!


ok, so maybe this is our favorite part.


ethan worked hard to get his icing on juuuust right.


by this time, amelia was totally fed up with the fact that she was not getting to participate very much in the cookie-making process. (last year, we had our cookie day during amelia's morning nap. ahh, those were the days!) so... amelia was victorious in her little campaign, and she got to ice her very first cookie. she knows she's big stuff now.


and we might as well go all out here... so here are some sprinkles, baby girl!


amelia did not get the memo that you're supposed to let the icing set... she did not want that cookie out of her sight!


so she won again. look at that face! a victorious giggle...


well, if you give a baby a cookie, she's going to want... another cookie to go with it. you can see from amelia's red face and pathetically watery blue eyes that she pitched a little fit for that second cookie. i am not usually a push-over, and i am most-definitely not one to give in to fits (my kids will quote, "fussing gets you nothing but a spanking".) but we are talking christmas cookies here. and documentation of the process. and i was really in my element with the cookies and the multiple bowls of icing and the sprinkles. and the screaming toddler knew that. so she got another cookie. (and the grandmothers everywhere rejoiced.)


i loved sharing this day with my mom. she is a great snowman cookie maker. :)


heeeere's the finished product! three sugar-buzzed kids and a stovetop full of cookies!


the kids were so helpful in cleaning up the spilled icing. so maybe cleaning up was their favorite part...


and here's a shot right before biting into their first cookies of the christmas season!


i love this shot of some of our deeeelicious cookies! christmas may be over, but there's always a reason to make cookies! click on over to my cookie post from last year for the recipe.

our jesse tree on christmas eve

fear not, for behold, i bring good news of great joy that will be for all the people. for unto you is born this day in the city of david a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. (luke 2:10-11)


in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth...


and from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. (john 1:1,14,16)


there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest up on Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord... (isaiah 11:1-2)


for to us a child is born, to us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. of the increase of His government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of david and over His kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. (isaiah 9: 6-7)


our jesse tree is complete! merry christmas! happy birthday Jesus!

it's almost christmas!

these kiddos are giddy with excitement that christmas is just around the corner! Jesus' birthday. God made flesh. behold, the Lamb of God!

behold, the Lamb of God...Who takes away our sin.
behold, the Lamb of God...the life and light of men.
behold, the Lamb of God...Who died and rose again.
behold, the Lamb of God...Who comes to take away our sin.

breakfast with cinderella

i'm skipping ahead to tuesday morning of our disney week because it was a special day for the girls! after a super long day at magic kingdom on monday, we were up bright and early to have breakfast at cinderella's castle! this was another first for us during this trip. none of us had ever been inside the castle... caroline had no idea that you could even go in the castle until she received cinderella's breakfast invitation for her birthday. so this was a special day indeed. it was tough getting up early that morning... but it was definitely worth it.

one of the best parts about our breakfast reservation was that it allowed us to enter the magic kingdom before the park opened. the guys were at the front of the park waiting for it to open in about 20 minutes (they had zero interest in a princess breakfast!), and once i realized that they did not actually check our reservation details to let us in the "breakfast reservations" entrance, i was incredibly bummed that the guys weren't with us. :( i mean, how often do you get to actually stroll down main street with no one there?


and knowing we did not get a great family picture in front of the castle the day before, i was wishing we could have gotten one this morning. but i got over it. :) and i enjoyed my time with the girls! here are caroline and nana on main street without thousands of our closest friends! love it!!


once we were in the park, we had all kinds of time to kill before our breakfast reservation... so we slowly walked down main street and soaked in the beautiful surroundings. we are usually busting it down this road to beat all the other double-stroller-pushing-families to dumbo! :) i love the classic look of main street...


and here's the castle in all its construction glory! (fantasyland is undergoing a major expansion project.)


the girls are ready for our breakfast in the castle!


caroline was ready for me to be done with the clicking... let's head to the castle!


ok, just one more for daddy. did i mention that i loved that there were not a million people behind this statue?!?


as we walked into the bottom of the castle, caroline looked so tiny against the giant mosaic and massive arches.


well.. she found the shining armor-- now where's the knight?


i couldn't convince the guys to let amelia tag along with them (something about racecars and minimum height... blah blah blah), so we armed ourselves with cheerios and hoped they'd last till we got to our table. we waited in line to meet cinderella for a little bit, and we managed not to lose amelia. it was a successful morning thus far.


and finally! meeting cinderella! cinderella was so sweet to notice all the details on caroline's princess dress. she talked with her for a good little while and made sure to tell her happy birthday.


here we are with cinderella! notice that caroline is holding her dress just like cinderella. and notice that amelia is still a bit skeptical of the character idea.


after meeting cinderella, we went upstairs for breakfast. the winding staircase was neat!


my dainty little lady climbing the stairs. :)


we're almost there!


we made it to the top and were shown to our table. the restaurant upstairs is cozy, and your attention is immediately drawn to the beautiful windows overlooking fantasyland.



before each princess comes out to greet the guests, her story is dramatically told over the loudspeakers. it doesn't take long to guess which princess will be arriving next, and she comes out with much applause and excitement! unfortunately, our table was next to a huge pillar that blocked our view of the princesses' entrances. we saw them before too long, but i was a little disappointed about our table location. at least we did have a nice view of the windows...

and here are the princesses! jasmine was first, and i was so happy that she was teeny tiny (if ya know what i mean!). can i get an amen, hannah!??!?! :)


sleeping beauty was next-- they were all so sweet to try to say hi to amelia too, even though i told them she was not too keen on characters. i'm cracking up at amelia's look on her face. she is not amused. i guess she's thinking, "aren't you supposed to be sleeping?!"


"there's ariel!"


caroline has never met ariel (we've tried to clear of the bikini-clad character greetings), so she was especially excited to see her. and i was especially excited to see her in actual clothes. (caroline hasn't seen her movie either, but she still knew who she was and loved meeting her.)


belle is always full of hugs...


after all the princesses made their way around the restaurant, the girls were given a wishing wand and a wishing star... i didn't quite follow all that the announcer said, but they got to make a wish and touch the wand to the wishing star. it was cute, but honestly, i've never made a big deal about making wishes and such with our kids... not trying to get on my soapbox here, but we take our requests to God. :) so i don't think caroline got the whole "make a wish" thing... but she enjoyed waving her cute purple wand around in the air.



sleeping beauty came over to help out... gotta make sure that wish gets heard ;)


what was pretty neat is that after the whole wishing ceremony, lights flashed randomly across the ceiling of the dining room. i think it was supposed to be the wishes being granted... here's caroline trying to figure out what's going on. :) ha!


amelia had fun playing "bibbity bobbity boo!" with nana!


it was an extra special treat for nana to join us for breakfast in the castle. she also shared her stuffed french toast with me. :) thanks, nana.


as soon as the princesses exited the dining room, caroline was ready to go drive the race cars. (sigh.) from princesses to race cars in a matter of seconds! and she was definitely done with pictures. but after a little tickling, i got a picture of me and my girl.


we were finished with breakfast, but i just didn't want to leave the castle yet! so caroline humored me, and we snapped some pictures by the windows overlooking fantasyland. i love this one of my four year old girl.


enjoying a unique view of the carousel...


after watching the carousel go round-and-round a few times, caroline was ready to hop on her own musical horse.


"c'mon mom! let's go ride the carousel... and then the racecars!"


so it was off to the carousel before meeting up with the guys!


this special birthday breakfast at the castle was definitely one of the highlights of our week at disney! i have much more to share about our disney days, but it will have to wait until after christmas. i want to spend this week focusing on the precious christmas memories we are making as a family... and hopefully i will be sharing those pictures soon. christmas is rapidly approaching, and our kids are excited about celebrating Jesus' birth in just one week! more disney posts to come in january, and some christmas blogging should be happening soon.