Tis the Season

There is so much to say, I’m feeling so blessed tonight. I love this time of year, especially when everyone is content, and enjoying themselves. Tonight for FHE we watched Mr. Krueger’s Christmas. That movie is a classic, and the kids get all squirmy with feelings, and I must admit I find myself hiding a few tears when I watch it too. It’s not overly sad, just stirs the feelings.

Danny took Aubrey and Alyssa over to the table to start making Gingerbread cookies with them without the interference of the older kids who have a tendency to take over. Aubrey and I made the dough yesterday after church as a reward for her behavior at church. All they had to do was roll it out and cut it. (Aubrey has been struggling in church lately, I suspect it’s because I’m in primary and she knows there isn’t a lot I can do when I’m leading the music. So I have been doing a system with her, where she takes 5 quarters to church and it costs her 2 quarters to do something special with me after church. She has to have 2 quarters left when we get home or she loses that privilege, and Sunday she came home with all 5 quarters. Now back to FHE.)

The kids had so much fun making the cookies and decorating them. Danny started by making a cyclops gingerbread man. We’ve been reading the Percy and the Olympians series, and it inspired him. There were lots of jokes about biting the heads off of the gingerbread men, and everyone had a great evening. Alyssa loved every moment of it all. She decorated one side of her gingerbread man, and then turned it over and decorated the other side. One cookie lost its head coming off the cookie sheet and Danny couldn’t resist putting red frosting at its neck dripping down to look like blood. There was a Santa bread man made, creativity was flowing all over the place.

Good times, good kids, I love them, and I love the easygoing feeling that was in our home tonight. Now to go clean up the mess…

Aubrey and Alyssa worked out a system, Alyssa would take the unbaked cookie from Danny on a spatula and hand it to Aubrey to arrange on the cookie sheet.


The Cyclops Cookie


One last picture. Thursday night we went to the Carson City tree lighting celebration. Now if we could just get some snow, I might feel like we are ready for Christmas.