Christmas Cookies

 Have you tried these cookies?

They are quite a tasty little treat.  My friend Sarah and I used to eat them all season long when we worked together.  She said they go great with a cup of coffee.  She said she was going to find out which taste better:  the red or the green cookies. I am a fan of the green, but James thinks they taste the same.

I have only seen them at Meijers and Family Fare. Next time you go to the store you should pick up a package and have a little treat.

A New Tradition

I think traditions are so fun. 
I am hoping this will be a new one for us.
I wrapped up Christmas books (you may have seen this on pinterest) and the girls get to each open one every night until Christmas.

The first night the Christmas Tree Fairy visited and left a little present by the front door.  She left the book, a little fairy for our tree, and a note telling the girls to remember to think of others during Christmastime. 

The second night one of my friends from highschool was here with her daughter so we got to read 3 books.

The girls seem to be enjoying opening a present every night even though they know what it is.

How to tie a scarf

My mom showed me this video on pinterest.  I've watched a few times now.  I love to wear scarves, but I always do the same thing.  With this video I am hoping to try a few new ways of wearing my scarves.

Bon Fire

Last weekend I called up my grandpa and asked him if they wanted to do a bon fire.  It was pretty nice out and I thought it might be our last chance.  We were going to do it a couple weeks ago, but it was too windy.  It worked out for them to do it so we headed over for some fun.

We roasted hot dogs, made smores, let off some fireworks, and rode the lawn mower.

Annabelle really enjoyed playing with the fire.

Ariel really wanted to make her own smore.

Love Them So Much

Photo Shoot

I wanted to get the girls 2 and 4 year old pictures taken.  I had been putting it off as Annabelle is 4 1/2 and Ariel is almost 2 1/2.  I keep telling myself that they haven't changed that much.

I usually take the girls to Sears, but I felt like they might not do so well for the people and according to Pinterest there are so many cuter ways to capture my girls.
I have been pinning lots of photo ideas.  I tried a couple things at home and decided that I could maybe try to take their pictures.  I only have a point and shoot camera, but I thought if I had a good location I'd be okay.

I remembered seeing some family pictures of a girl I went to high school with in a beautiful spot.
I packed a lunch and props and headed to Spring Grove Park in Hudsonville.
I am pretty impressed with how my pictures turned out.  I certainly do not have a career in photography, but for the amount of money I saved I can do my own pictures.

I use winkflash.com for all my photo uploading and ordering.  I had a credit from a previous purchase so the total of my order was about $5.  I ordered 35 photos.  A pretty good deal!

Annabelle, 4 years

Arianna, 6 weeks

Ariel, 2 years

Glitter, So Much Glitter

My New Year's Resolution was to use more glitter.

I found a super easy way to glue glitter.

Spray some aerosol hairspray onto the surface, cover with glitter, spray with hairspray again.

Annabelle and I did some letter A's for her and Ariel.  She did the gold and I did the pink.

I did a picture frame.  This turned out really cute.

My sisters and I also tried shoes.  We were pretty unsuccessful.  The glitter just didn't seem to stay on the shoe with hairspray. 

I found this stuff on amazon and would like to give this a try.  I also read to mix the glitter with mod podge.

Maybe this spring we can make a glitter bird house.  Acutally I think we will pass on that.  We have a bird living in our garage (he acutally made it into the house once) so I don't want to encourage any more bird being close to us.

Happy Glittering

Time for Tot Time

Annabelle started preschool this year.  I can't believe she is old enough to go to school. 

The night before her first day of school I came up the stairs and saw her "big girl" back pack hanging on the door.  It made me think of how fast these past four years have gone. 

Annabelle on her first day of school.  I saw this idea where you have your child write their name each year.  She wrote it in pink so it is hard to see.

Mommy and Annabelle before school.

I was very nervous about her first day.  We went to visit the classroom and meet her teacher the week before just so she would know where she was going.  I was ready for lots of crying and clinging.  However, when her teacher rang the bell she ran over to the carpet and sat right down.  I guess the one crying on the first day was me. 

I am so proud of my little girl.  She loves school and maybe won't be following in her mommy's footsteps of crying everyday (which could get tiring since I did it until 2nd grade.  How my mom did it, I do not know).

Out for Lunch

The other day it took me forever to get myself and the girls ready for the day.  By the time we were all dressed and had our hair done it was almost lunch time.  I really wasn't up for making lunch so we headed to Arby's.  The girls love the Jr. Roast Beef Sandwiches.  They have been eating them since they could eat table food.  I feel like they are one of the healthier fast food options.  Plus they are only $1.   

For some reason I always need to put the food by the baby. 

What do you do for lunch when you don't feel like making anything?

Baking

I found a recipe on Pinterest and decided to actually try it instead of just pinning it. 

The girls were very eager to help me.  We don't bake a lot because then we would eat a lot.  I try not to have a ton of sweets around the house because I can't keep my hands off of them. 

We made Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. 

You can find the recipe by clicking on the cookie name.  They didn't call for that much peanut butter so we didn't taste a lot of it in the cookie.   I felt like once they cooled we could taste it a little more  They were very pretty, fluffy cookies.