Cookie Baking

Each year my Aunt Rose gets together with my cousins and bakes cookies. She's done this for years, but I'm in TN, they're in St. Louis so it's not really a viable option for me to join them. I've done cookie swaps before, but always thought this sounded fun-- the joy of baking and having someone to do the baking with! So this year I finally made it a point to try and schedule this with my sister, sister-in-law and nieces/nephews.

They both loved the idea as well! It took some planning, but found a day that worked for all of us and everyone came over today. My aunt recommended we pre-make the dough, then bake everything when we get together. So we decided to each make 3 different kinds of cookie doughs, then we'd bake at my house and everyone would get to take home some of each kind!

I also wanted to make some cut out sugar cookies and royal icing for the kids to decorate cookies while we were busy baking. After going to the cookie decorating day last week, however, I decided to glean from my friend, Jessi's, wisdom of buying sugar cookies, icing and decorations. Much simpler than my original idea and the kids had just as much fun. :) Then they ran along to play!

I loved Olivia's creativity of putting making a snowman with the cookies. So cute!! I helped the kids and took pics while Tracy was mixing and in between batches of cookies in the oven. Tracy brought m&m's, red velvet & Grinch, Becca brought butterfinger & maple (which were my personal fav) and I made chocolate chip, chocolate peanut butter chip & oatmeal raisin. We each got to keep probably a dozen or so of each. This was really fun and we already talked about next year, so hopefully this will be a new tradition!!

Christmas lights!

When I was little we sometimes went to a drive through Christmas light display. I don't know if we did this every year or just a few times, but I remember how amazing and fun I thought it was to drive under all those lights. After moving to TN, we went to the Opryland Hotel and sometimes to neighborhoods done up with lights, but not a drive through place.

We finally had a chance to do that with the kids this year! I've heard other people talk about it and found a place so we headed straight there after Christmas at Granny's. The kids loved it and I did too! It was a little small/short for what they charged I think, but it was so nice to do this with the family.

I hope this is a new tradition! Merry Christmas. :)

Christmas at Granny's

We had our annual Christmas celebration with Daniel's mom's side yesterday. This was our first Christmas without PawPaw so I think it was a little bittersweet for everyone. Nice getting together, but sad that he's not here. Granny decided to do a simple meal this year- choice of steak & baked potato, hamburgers or hot dogs and a couple other sides. This was fine with all of us, still yummy and enjoyable. 

After lunch we opened gifts and hung out until the out-of-town family had to head back home then we left a little while later. Merry Christmas 2016!

Cookie Decorating

We got together with some friends this morning for hot chocolate and cookie decorating! The host provided the cookies and icing and each mom brought toppings to share. The kids had a great time and enjoyed eating the yummy cookies. :)

 Will was the oldest by a lot which he wasn't super excited about, but he still had a pretty good time. How can you really go wrong with hot chocolate and cookies?

Unexpected Christmas

Yesterday was a big day! We had the kids pageant in the morning then Unexpected Christmas last night. Our church hosts a community Christmas event each year and this is the second year it's been named "Unexpected Christmas" because some things happen during the service that are, well, unexpected. :)
Before the service, there was a fun family event with games, Frozen characters, cookie decorating, ornament decorating, a balloon animal artist plus hot chocolate! This was so much fun for the kids. I missed the beginning of the festivities because I was in the choir room rehearsing but Daniel let the kids get started and they had a great time.

 I think the cookie decorating station was probably their favorite- we spent a lot of time here. Saw several people come and go while we still sat, decorated and ate!

Then I sang on stage with American Idol star Clark Beckham. I was just in the choir- didn't like sing a duet with him or anything. But still, pretty cool for my first year in choir. :)