I'm back!

I promised I would come back to post more later, so here I am. Let me see, after my birthday and Thanksgiving came Christmas preparations. We did the very traditional thing this year and drove to the local tree farm and trudged around in the mud searching for THE tree with our little ones. Luckily, we experienced some great weather that day and we didn't freeze our tootsies off. After at least 30-40 minutes of tree tracking, we finally settled on one. Daddy sawed it down and we dragged it off to the hay wagon. We burnt our mouths on hot cider while the tree was secured to the top of our minivan. I decided that next year we should pick one of those beautiful Douglas Firs that have already been cut down at the tree farm. They were spectacular! And no mud trudging required.

The kids were so much into the Christmas spirit that it was hard not to get into it as well. Their excitement about decorating the tree and the house was over the top. They were skipping around the house in their Santa hats singing Christmas songs and make believing Christmas morning everyday. They would "wrap" some of their toys in blankets and pretend to have Christmas day with each other opening presents. It was precious. Don't assume life in the Eash house is all pretend and lollipops. Yes, it's true there are some fun times. Those times are interspersed with lots of fighting between the kids. Mostly between two little boys in particular. As a matter of fact, I just sent those two precious boys to their room after Sullivan threw the Playstation remote (Busted! Yes, I let my kids play video games and they watch tv, too.) at Nolan and hit him square in the back because Nolan was going to delete his game. Ah, I can feel the love. Now I can hear Nolan spewing hateful comments about his brother from his room. Here, this will lighten the mood....some cute photos!
Christmas cookies! Remind me to read this blog next year before making cut-out cookies so I can prevent making the same mistakes. The dough recipe I used this year turned out quite nice for rolling and decorating, so that is a keeper. I used the Wilton recipe that I cut out from the back of one of the cookie cutters I bought. What I won't use again is the cookie icing for decorating. It dries hard, shiny and pretty but it is not kid friendly. I tried putting the icing in ziploc bags with a small hole snipped off one of the corners only to have the icing come out of the top or explode through the seams. Next year I think I will stick with my buttercream recipe for the cookies. It will easier for the kids to manage. Regardless, they thoroughly enjoyed making and decorating the cookies and I think Santa really liked them, too. I am still not done with the updates, but alas my children need me to provide nourishment so I must go. I shall return.