Christmas!

The long awaited day finally arrived! Amazingly the girls slept in until almost 8:30. But they were on non-stop hyper energy mode from then on. All three boys made it home and the girls were so excited to get presents and see their big brothers all in the same day.

Abby

Ellie

Annie's first Christmas

Maddie

Ladybug princess ballerinas

All seven kids: Ellie (5), Jason (26), Abby (6), Eric (24), Annie (3), Rob (30), and Maddie (3). OK, I sort of cheated here -- this is actually from Thanksgiving. I was so busy with everything else that I didn't get a photo of all the kids together on Christmas day!

Counting the days

Q. How many times a day can you check the calendar and count the days to see if Christmas is here yet?

A. Oh, at least a dozen times -- each girl!

So that makes four dozen (and I NEVER exaggerate) times a day that we stand at the kitchen calendar and count and recount just to make sure that we know how many days are left until Christmas.

It brings back all those fond (?) memories of our waits for PA/DTC/LID/LOA/TA/CA/FFD.

Do you think there is any excitement at our house these days??

Ginger Snaps and Butterscotch Sugar Drops

This morning the girls and I baked cookies to take to the Christmas party at pre-school tomorrow. Since I was using this as a homeschooling opportunity, we read through part of an Old-Fashioned Cookies cookbook and decided on two recipies that had "unusual" ingredients. First we made a batch of Ginger Snaps and then we made Butterscotch Sugar Drops with Dried Cranberries. A flurry of sifting, mixing, whisking, stirring, pouring, smelling and licking was followed by (im)patient waiting for the cookies to come out of the oven. Finally, we all got to taste our creations which were pronounced yummy and delicious!

Ellie's turn to use the mixer while Maddie and Annie carefully study her technique.

Hmmm . . . what does molasses smell like?

Abby has an attentive audience

Maddie and the "ooey, gooey" molasses

Yup, we are already teaching Annie to sample the cookie dough

Annie was supposedly smelling the fresh out of the oven Ginger Snaps -- but I have a feeling she was sneaking a nibble!

Happy Holidays

We had our annual photo session for our Christmas cards last week. The girls love to get dressed up so no complaints there. They all did amazingly well during the shoot and some of the outtakes are absolutely priceless. This year will be Annie's first Christmas and she has enthusiastically embraced all the holiday fun. When we saw "Santa" (lovely older gentleman with a white beard and a red stocking hat) shopping at Costco the other day, she yelled "Hi Santa!" over and over. He was so sweet and played along. Of course the older girls were quite suspicious and wanted to know why Santa was at Costco instead of working on the toys. He kindly explained that the elves were hungry. That seemed to satisfy their curiosity. And they were all on their best behavior for the rest of our trip!

Abby -- 6 years old

Ellie - 5 years old

Maddie - 3 years old

Annie and Maddie had way too much fun!

The winning shot!