Christmas Cookies with Aunt Pamela

Like everyone else, the Christmas season has been busy around here. I'm way behind on blog posts. I have many, many pictures to post, and hopefully, I'll catch up over the next week.

First of all, I have pictures of Christmas cookie-making with Aunt Pamela on the Tuesday before Christmas.

Firs the kids opened their Christmas gifts from Aunt Pamela - aprons! Very appropriate :)



On to the cookie-making!

We made a wonderful mess and had lots of fun!! Thanks, Aunt Pamela for a wonderful day!

Time with Ma

During our first week in GA, we got to see my grandmother almost everyday. My mother often goes to her house after work to bring her here for supper. Seeing the happiness that the kids bring her reminds us why we make the long trip from PA.

*My grandmother, who suffers from Alzheimer's, recently had a fall, and a medication that she takes makes her bruise very easily, which is why her face is so bruised. She has improved much over the last week, and seeing the kids has helped her along!

Gingerbread House

This weekend the kids and Grandma made a Gingerbread house.

Here is the final creation!

Our Jesse Tree

During Advent we have been making ornaments for a Jesse tree. A Jesse tree and it's ornaments are a way to follow the story of salvation history from the creation of the world through the birth of Christ. Everyday we have learned another part of the story (through Holy Hero's Advent Adventure) and have made an ornament for our tree. The ornaments have a symbol representing a person or event.

Last Advent we made paper ornaments and taped them on a paper tree we made. This year our good friends, the Rosamonds, sent us some nice wood pieces that they cut from a birch log, and we have painted some nice ornaments that we can use year after year. We got a 3 foot tree to hang them on.

Here are some of the ornaments we made. We've added to them as the weeks have passed. We weren't able to bring the tree to GA, but we did bring the ornaments and added them to Grandma's tree so that we can continue the story through the last week of Advent.

We hope you have all had a blessed Advent preparing for the joys of the Christmas season!!

First Snow of the Season

Even a good dusting is exciting at the beginning of the season!

Let the baking begin!

We made some peanut butter cookies with Hershey kisses this afternoon. Yummy!

I did my Thanksgiving grocery shopping this morning, and I can't wait for Thursday! We'll have a pretty simple meal since it'll only be our family, but we're still looking forward to it :)

I hope everyone else is ready to enjoy their holiday!

A few sewing projects

I've been sewing some this fall.


Maria's reached the age and size that it's nearly impossible to find decent clothing for her. So, I made 3 skirts for her. I only have pictures of 2 of them...

Oops, no close-up of this second skirt. I have material for one more skirt (for me), but I haven't gotten around to making that one yet.

I've also been crocheting. I really enjoy crocheting. It's relaxing, with all the repetitive stitches. It's also easy to pick up for a few minutes and put down. It also doesn't involve dangerous sharp needles that little hands can get.

Here is a leg warmer that I crocheted for Elena to wear over her leggings on cold mornings. I did finally crochet the second one :) --This is not the best picture of Elena!--

I just finished this project! It is a wool diaper cover. You can see in the above picture the wool cover we purchased several months ago. The cloth diapers we were using at night always leaked - not during the day, only at night. I had heard that wool covers were great for this, but they are much more expensive than regular covers, so I was hesitant to try them. Eventually, I became tired of dealing with wet sheets every morning, and decided to try one. Well, it works great!! We've NEVER had a leak. They are made of merino wool, which is very soft and not at all itchy. They are easy to wash. Actually, unless they get soiled, they only have to be washed once every few weeks. We love them so much that we wanted a second one for night use (when you wash them, they take a couple of days to dry), and some for day use. I found a great pattern and got some good yarn and made this cover...

I think it's really cute. Next time, I'll do the leg cuffs a little differently - there were 3 options in the pattern. I can't wait to make some more (the new baby would love some, too, I'm sure! -- Oh, for those who haven't heard yet, we're expecting another little blessing next July!!). But, I'll have to wait until I can start another one because there are a lot of Christmas things I need to take care of first.


Here is a leg warmer for Chiara. When she saw Elena's, she asked for some. Unfortunately, this one doesn't have a mate yet, so I guess that is the next item on my crochet-things-to-do list.

It's that time of year!

Just a quick post to point out to interested family and friends (mainly Grandma!), that I have put together a preliminary Christmas list and posted a link on the right side of the blog. Please let me know if you get anything from the list.

Going on a leaf hunt

Fall is coming to a close. The weather is getting quite cool and nearly all the leaves have fallen from the trees around here. So, I think it's time to look back at our leaf hunt we went on last month to remember how beautiful the trees were!

I uploaded some pictures out of order, so first you will see what we did with the leaves when we got back home...

We laminated some of our favorite.

And we did some leaf rubbings. I thought these turned out very nice!

Here is the leaf hunt! The kids had been begging to go since the first leaves started to turn in September, but I held them off until October when my parents visited.

I hope you all had a beautiful Fall!!!