December Daily: Day 22

I love red and white together as colors. There are red and white combos all over the house. Christmas time is my favorite because it means more red and white! I am loving this centerpiece on my table. Red and white candles on a white platter surrounded by some fresh pine branches that I pulled off of the tree in our backyard, sprinkled with cranberries. Simple and lovely!

December Daily: Day 21

Today we are enjoying decorating sugar cookies. I've enjoyed having an excuse to bake these last few weeks. I've been trying different sugar cookie recipes this year. My mom's is the BEST, but for some reason I am completely unable to get the recipe to work out. So this year I tried a new recipe and finally had a small measure of success.

I've also done something new this year that I've never done before. We had left over cake frosting from the gingerbread houses, so we used the rest of that frosting up on the cookies instead of making some from scratch. I felt like such a cheater, but no one seemed to mind! The kids LOVED decorating with the sprinkles, which of course were all over the kitchen by the end of day.

There are a couple of cookies that have to be made in order for Christmas to be complete. Sugar cookies are pretty near the top of the list. My favorite are chocolate covered peanut butter bonbons. Mmmm! Jason has to have spritzer cookies in the shape of green Christmas trees and after trying the cookie recipe on the back of the Andes Peppermint Crunch the other day I think I'm adding those to our list of 'must haves'.

Daily December: Day 20

A little craftiness for this post. I saw this idea in a book and thought that my version of it came out pretty cute. All of the materials except for the letters were from the dollar store!

Daily December: Day 19

My dear sweet husband arranged for me to have a new hair cut for Christmas. I thought I would throw my new 'do' into the mix of pictures for December.

I think the last hair cut I had was in June. I had colored it a few times by myself in the last few months, which Jason isn't much a fan of - usually because I end up turning my hair orange (apricot was the perfect color description that Loreal used when I called their help line!)or bleaching it out (in an attempt to get rid of the apricot color) which all end up resulting in tears.

It was so nice to have someone do my hair that knew what they were doing. Amanda (from day 16) was sweet enough to give me a new cut and a much needed color.

NOW, I am ready for Christmas!

Daily December: Day 18

Tonight we were downstairs in the basement. We heard fire trucks in the neighborhood and then down our street. And man, they were really loud. I'm rushing upstairs thinking that surely our neighbor's house is on fire. Instead, we find Santa riding on the back of a firetruck! Ho Ho Ho! Welcome to Spokane :-)

Daily December: Day 17

Millions and millions of letters. At least that is what it seemed like. Today we finished up working on our Christmas newsletter. We hope that you got it in the mail!

Daily December: Day 16 part B

This fall I took a photography class and so I am trying to find willing victims on whom I can practice. Sunday afternoon I went over to the house of one of Jason's students. Ben and Amanda had beautiful Abigail over 8 weeks ago. She was 5 weeks early and born at 4 and a halfish pounds. She looked like a doll the first time we saw her but she is a healthy 8 pounds now. Here are a look at a couple of my favorite shots. It was so fun and I am so excited how the pictures came out!

Daily December: Day 16

Today we tried to do some fun new traditions with the kids. We ordered pizza for dinner (that was more fun for me than the kids!) and we got into our pajamas (not including Jason) made hot chocolate and went for a ride in the car to look at lights.










We decided to head up to a local church that was having a drive through living nativity. We got into line just after 7:00 and this is what we looked at for over an hour.






After an hour of looking at tail lights, the kids were getting pretty antsy.




The kids did remarkably well for being in the car for an hour and a half. The nativity was really neat. If we go next year, we will just have to be prepared for the wait.

Daily December: Day 15

Going to see Santa Clause this year was great! We headed up to Green Bluff (our favorite fruit picking area) where one of the stores had a Santa that the kids could visit. There were no long lines, we could stay and visit as long as we wanted and best of all, it was free. Kellan was only in it for the candy cane, but Mirielle seemed to get a kick out of sitting on Santa's lap. We took a few pictures outside and I just couldn't pick which one I liked the most.

Daily December: Day 14

Tonight was the Moody Aviation Staff party - family style. I made sure we all coordinated our outfits for this picture on our kitchen floor :-)