Thanksgiving Weekend 2011

WOW! I didn't plan on being away for so long! Life has been very busy and blogging got moved down on the priority list. How was your Thanksgiving? We had a nice, low-key day with my parents AND it happened to be my dad's birthday too..yay for birthdays!

My mom had a fun craft for the kids to do...a fruit (and celery) turkey

It was very cute (and edible too)! First, they "painted" the grapes and sprinkled dumped sugar over them...

Then my mom attached all the pieces to the pineapple body. Yum, Yum! It's nice to have fruit around to eat before and/or after a heavy meal.

After a huge meal, everyone just sat around and relaxed...with a phone or in front of the TV for football or with an iPad...

This happy, little bundle of cuteness is crawling all over the place and the other day when I went to get her out of her crib, she was holding on to the crib rail and standing!! Oh, boy!

The day after Thanksgiving, we got out the Christmas stuff.

Then, at about 3pm we decided to go out and get a tree, which was great, except for the fact that it gets dark around 4-4:30pm. So, we BLINDLY picked out a tree, came home and did some extensive pruning and trimming. TOTALLY worth it though...there's nothing like a freshly cut tree. I love the smell of a fresh tree in the house!

Once the tree was up, the kids and I made cookies to eat while we decorated...Sweet Pea requested cookies with sprinkles, so that's what we made.

I used this recipe for thick, soft and chewy sugar cookies and they were just that...thick, soft and chewy...mmm! We didn't have any sour cream,  as the recipe calls for, so I substituted cream cheese and they were REALLY yummy! Even the next day, they were still soft.

After baking cookies, it was time to DECORATE THE TREE!

We all had fun getting out all our family ornaments and hanging our special ones. I love our little eclectic family tree.

I have one day to finish up our advent calendar that I'm putting together. I better jump on it!

I love Christmas time!