Holiday Cookies 2008 (aka Sprinkle Time!)

Mia and I baked up some holiday cookies...regular sugar cookies in the shapes of candy canes and trees then some gingerbread men. Mixing, rolling, cutting out and baking the dough was fun...so I thought. Then came the SPRINKLES!!!!

I'm not sure when the last time was that we had that much fun! Mia's sprinkle theory: icing, sprinkles for me, sprinkles for cookie, sprinkles for me...eat cookie!

In the time it took Mia to decorate one cookie, I did about 25! She's serious about her sprinkles. We may have to have a sprinkle intervention...scroll down to see why! What's even more hilarious was when she 'found' sprinkles on the rug and told Niles (our dog), 'NO! those are MY sprinkles!!!' and then ate a bunch more! tis the season :)

Tree Trimming & Cookie Baking

This year, Mia is a BIG help. She wants to be right in the middle of everything. She's enjoyed laying under the tree while I was putting all the lights up. Daryl topped it very nicely with our star...it's only fallen on me once. Mia was soooo cute trying to hang ornaments on the tree. Her first one, a red apple, she hung on the tippy tip of a light bulb. Then she moved on to attaching ornaments to the wires of the lights instead of the tree branches. Oh, and ALL the snowmen and to be together...like a centimeter apart! Mia's totally into my snow globe collection. She'll sit on the floor with one for a loooong time just turning it over and watching the snow slowing fall...the ones with a music box in the base are her favorites. She's only broken one...now they are up on the counter and will be moved down per her request...one at at time while supervised :)

Then we baked many many many sugar cookies in the shapes of snowflakes, candy canes and christmas trees. I'm waiting for a peaceful block of time this week to sit down with her and decorate away. She had her own little rolling pin, but I LOVED when she used mine that my mom gave to me....it's what she used while I was growing up...very sentimental.

p.s. anytime we do anything christmassy, Mia wants to wear her elf helper hat. I sometimes don my santa hat, but it's a little itchy

Santa Hat

Another little holiday tradition is the shot of Mia in a santa hat. I usually print small ones and stick them on cute photo ornaments for gifts to the grandparents. It's been silly and fun, but not this year. I think I've been in her face with the camera too much. What happened to my sweet lil one with the fabulous smile?

2006

2007

so far, the choices for 2008

Visits with Santa...through the years

I'm 38 years old and I still cherish my pictures with Santa when I was young. It's a tradition that I wanted to keep going with Mia. She's had fabulous visits with him...even when she was in the womb :) She's snuggled, received a much coveted lollipop, and this year, Santa gave Mia a jingle bell necklace that she won't take off. She's coming up the stairs as I'm writing this...jingling all the way :)