Christmas Baking

This year I let myself get behind in my Christmas baking so a majority of the baking was done in one night. This “all in one night” process drove Wayne a little crazy. See, the house smells like a bakery (and is stocked like one) and he is not allowed to touch ANYTHING, poor guy! Usually, I am able to do the baking and packaging over a few days and, so, he gets “leftovers” on a regular basis.

Anyway, I LOVE to bake so doing this for our family and a few friends is pure Christmas joy for me! This year I made old fashioned oatmeal cookies (my Mom’s recipe), chocolate peanut cups, sugar cookies, white chocolate cups, brownies, chocolate chip cookies and peppermint bark. I was able to find these adorable red buckets to package for twelve of our friends and family. I ran out of time – again I got behind – and, so, I am going to have to make the gingerbread cookies for Santa later this week.

One of these days I will figure out a better schedule so that Wayne doesn’t have to “suffer” through the holidays! :) Plus next year I’d like to be able to bake for more of our friends…we’ll see….

Gingerbread House With Aunt Katie

Today Aunt Katie came over to play with Charlotte and they also decorated our gingerbread house!

Charlotte Hi-din’

Today Charlotte was obsessed with hiding from me, which she calls HI-DIN’. Anytime I addressed her directly – “Charlotte do you want to color a Christmas Tree?” - off she would run to hide. It was really cute because as soon as she could hear you coming she just started laughing. Her laughing got louder and louder the closer you came to “finding” her. The best part is that this afternoon she started saying HIDING and annunciating all the letters insisted if just saying Hi-din’. Such a smarty!

Happy 2nd Birthday Daisy

This afternoon Charlotte and I headed over to the Downtown Y to help Daisy celebrate her 2^nd Birthday! Unfortunately, the weather has not been cooperating and instead of the park party that was originally planned Cyndi, Daisy’s Mom, moved things indoors. It’s no surprise the kids still had a BLAST. We played on all the gym equipment and Charlotte even made her first basketball basket!

The theme for Daisy’s party was Sweet 2^nd and yesterday I was able to help Cyndi wrangle what must have been 20 dozen cookies and cupcakes…NO, it was probably more! We had a really fun afternoon baking for the party and Cyndi taught me how to make some YUMMY peanut butter cookies…don’t tell Wayne! :)

Happy 2nd Birthday Ashlyn

This morning Charlotte and I helped Ashlyn celebrate her 2nd birthday!

Ashlyn is one of Charlotte’s friends from Mommy & Me and, so, they have know each other most of their lives – funny to say about two year olds! Anyway, Charlotte had a great time playing with the other toddlers at the party. At one point Ashlyn and Charlotte pulled chairs over to the door of the glassed in porch to sit down together. I watched in amazement (forgot to take pictures) as they sat in front of the door and treated the glass inset like a TV. A dog was running back in forth in front of the door (wanting someone to let it in) and the girls were gesturing to each other and talking about the “doggie” being “outside”. It was so cool! We had a great time, Happy Birthday Ashlyn!