Christmas At Our House

My friend Julie posted this on Facebook:

It is oh so appropriate to describe me last year.... Actually I can relate this year, only this year I would say: I can make the stuff, but I cannot seem to find that shower.  I will say that a year makes a huge difference!  Last year I felt overwhelmed to cook packaged cookie dough and let Hope play with a tube of store bought icing.  This year we are making some progress!

At Cubbies Hope received supplies to make an Advent chain for our tree. 

Every day has a name of Jesus and a verse. 

The tree decorating was done this year after Will went to bed.  Will's improvement in sleeping habits is the only reason that I can do anything this year that I was unable to do last year.

When Will is awake...nothing gets done.  He's a mess. A fun mess, but a mess.

I did actually try to let Hope continue our lone surviving Christmas tradition of painting our gifts.  That went semi well.  Except somehow Will ended up with paint in his hair to go along with the jelly he had smeared in it in the above photo.  (Insight into a mother's life:)  As I was giving him a bath to wash out that paint and jelly, Hope walks into the bathroom holding my cell phone and asks me for my iphone password.  She needs it to buy a few apps from the apple store.  See why I can't seem to find a moment for my own shower?

Adding to our chaos: Will has learned to climb.  I decided if he can be a fast learner then he's going to quickly learn the word "sit."  He actually is learning it so he might survive to see age 2.

I saw this on Pinterest:  You just smear icing on a sugar cone and decorate it like a Christmas tree.  Brilliantly simple.  Just in case I never made it to decorating cookies I made sure we did this. 

See, how cute? (We were given a ginger bread house as a gift and I made Woody help Hope put that one together1 It looks cute with this tree right beside it. )

Ah, but decorate those cookies we did!  These cookies are...worth the effort.  Aunt Bobbi (of course) taught me her method right after Woody and I were married. 

I'm blessed with a large tote full of cookie cutters and I allowed Hope to choose her cutters.  She chose the classics and a few non traditional.

I know the popular method is to pipe a boarder, then "flood" the filler icing.  That's not our style.  It's worth it, I promise.

Afterward, I pipe butter cream frosting details.  Again...worth the effort. Maybe not as cute as Bobbi, but they are super yummy.

The recipe comes from an old Betty Crocker cook book.  Old as in, I had to travel to Russelville one time and check my Granny's copy because neither mine nor my mothers was old enough.  It has orange zest in it.  If yours doesn't have the orange zest, it ain't old enough!

Then, I make a simple butter/powdered sugar frosting that you put on straight out of the oven.  It melts and you spread it over the whole thing.  You can color this, but I leave it white and let Hope put sugar sprinkles on it for color.  Last, it's the regular ol' Wilton Butter cream Thin frosting for piping.  Tasty.

Now, a note from Leigh Ann:  A few days ago Woody sent me out on my own for a couple hours of Christmas shopping to finish up the kids stockings, etc.  As I was having a great time filling my basket with good things and having to hold myself back to stick to our budget a thought hit me.  Matthew 7: 11 "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!"  I LOVE treating my kids.  And I know exactly what will thrill them.  How much more will our Father in heaven love treating us with good things as well?  Just a Christmas shopping devotional for ya'.