More Christmas Happenings

Around the House: Cleaning and organizing. Getting ready for guests on Wednesday night. Here's a picture of the amaryllis that I bought from a school fundraiser. I had hoped that it would wait until Christmas to bloom, but of course it bloomed a week earlier. Oh well, it was still beautiful. And it is always nice to see pretty flowers on the table when the rest of the house looks like a tornado hit it.




In the Kitchen: The focus from now until Wednesday is cookies. I baked butter cookies last Friday and on Saturday, Embry and I decorated them. J even frosted a few.




Here's a closer look of one of my favorites... the blue Christmas tree with 30 (yes, we counted) red hots on it. Embry was very liberal with the red hots on all of her cookies. I finally had to cut her off, so that we'd have some cookies without them. The funny thing is that I remember doing the exact same thing when I was little. I also liked the silver dragees :)




New with Embry: We went to Embry's School Christmas program open house last week. The theme was Christmas around the world. Each classroom was a different region/country and celebrated as they do with clothing decorations, crafts,and food. Embry's class was Africa. They each stamped a t-shirt to wear, made drums, and clay pots. She also wore a beaded necklace and bracelet that they made. They had a expert on African culture come and speak to them. He brought instruments, traditional costumes, and decorations. And someone brought in a few African foods to eat. We were able to go to Embry's classroom and then walk with her to all of the other classes to see what they were up to. It was fun.

Here's a picture of Embry in her getup. She also is sporting a candy can that she stole off of the tree when she got home that day.




New with Matthew: He's a total pro at walking now. He's getting around all over the house, although he has some issues with all the places in the house where the carpet transitions to the hard floor and vice versa. He usually just sits down, crawls over the line and then gets up and walks again. Funny.

I'm Thankful For: Trader Joe's, the best store ever. Not only did we find another great new wine there today (that I'm sipping right now), but also a small container of Fiesta Dip. For those who are not familiar... Fiesta Dip is re-fried beans, sour cream, guacamole, salsa, and cheese layered for dipping. It is one of my favorite treats, but usually you can only find it in huge containers at the grocery store. Trader Joe's had a 2 serving size and they used black beans instead of pintos (even better). Yum!

The Weather Outside: I still can't complain. Even though it's now 9 degrees outside we have somehow avoided lots of messiness this week. It could have been like at my Mom's house with lots and lots of snow, or like at J's Mom's house with lots of ice. I'll definitely take cold and windy instead. Side note - Matthew (and sometimes Embry) have taken to playing in my bedroom closet lately. I think it's partly because there is a heat duct running through it and it's always warm in there.



I'm Obsessing About: Having everything ready for Christmas morning. I'm ahead of schedule, but since Embry is home this week, I'm planning on having less time than normal. I know everyone will have a good time regardless of whether or not I dust the bedroom, but it'll be nice of no one notices that I hadn't dusted since we moved here :).