A Mish-Mash

 I wouldn't say December has flown by, but it definitely hasn't been slow either. Like most months we have a ton of stuff to do, even if it is at home!  Gotta pack in those Christmas traditions you know! :)

Last weekend was a little bit of home time and a little bit of away time.

The kids and I made cookies... peanut butter blossoms and sugar cookies with Royal icing. If you do not already have a tried and true sugar cookie and icing recipe you MUST try these. They came out perfect. Also, I made sure the sugar cookie dough was cold before trying to cut the shapes (how on earth did I not know to do this before?!) and also used parchment paper on the cookie sheet. Best sugar cookies to date. I love learning something new with baking!

Cole and Charlotte loved helping with the cookies. We all mixed the peanut butter cookie dough, Cole rolled the dough into balls, and Charlotte dropped them into the sugar.  Charlotte also helped unwrap the hershey kisses and I think ate about six more than I told her she could have!  

Full length shots in front of the tree.  Every fiber of me wanted to get in close but I made myself take full length pictures. :)  I like them but I don't like how I cut off the top of the tree in the first one. I blame that on the limitations of the 50mm lens.  What's that you say? I NEED the 35mm f1.4 lens?  Humm.... :)

Saturday  morning Charlotte had her regular dance class. She  looks forward to this every Saturday morning and when I tell her that the next day in the week is Saturday and it's time for dance class, she actually squeals. The morning of she rushes through breakfast, and scurries off to put on her clothes. I'm pretty sure she would wear her tap shoes all of the time if I let her. Charlotte loves class and often can be seen practicing ballet moves (is there a more correct term? positions?) while dancing to the Polar Express at home. They had their Christmas "performance" and party on Saturday.  They practiced some choreography to Jingle Bells and Frosty. Charlotte eagerly participated where she knew the moves. If she doesn't know the moves, she doesn't try and just plays with her skirt. Understandable! :)  Well, Miss Laura called all of the parents down to the studio to watch the performance and Charlotte being the shy thing that she is, just clammed up with the parents were watching.  The picture below shows what she was doing for most of it!  Darling Charlotte! I hope that being in ballet and tap early on gets you over being shy!  When the jingle bells part came up (above pics) she of course chimed right in. Any excuse to make noise!

Later that night we all went over the Schwinns. The adults had a hysterically good time during dinner while the kids played.  I love my BFF and am so glad she is married to someone so cool. : )

The next day I met up with some of my childhood friends. We reconnected on FB and met up for the first time in about 10 years this past March.  These girls were my life when I was younger and I am so happy to be able to reconnect with them again!  Some of the crowd has moved away so it's just a couple of us but it was such a blast.  I love Facebook! :)