Christmas recap (continued)

We had a blizzard which left all four of us housebound for a couple of days. We got 19 inches in a day.

Instagram photo taken from our 2nd floor

We stayed inside and did things like make clay ornaments. After they were dry, we colored Elmer's Glue with green food coloring and painted one of them green. The other two little ones were coated with plain Elmer's to protect them from grime over time.

LE had her first hot chocolate. She prefers it cold. Go figure.

LE made a Christmas tree from popsicle sticks that I trimmed with scissors (not easy to trim, mind you).  She colored the sticks with a marker (you could use paint), coated it well with Elmer's, and then applied little decorations.

We also made a Borax snowflake. I recommend making ones smaller than what we did if you want to do this as well. Maybe do them 2 inches wide and use wide mouth canning jars? They are really easy.

After the winds from the blizzard died down, we took the girls out to sled in our backyard and make snow angels, something LE had been requesting since the last small snowfall melted. We got them both bundled up but thought we'd put LE's mittens on outside.

Hannah cried almost from the moment she got stuffed into the Baby Bjorn. I got this photo of John pushing LE on the disc, and the next moment, LE was crying because her hands were too cold. We all headed back inside, officially making our adventure a bust. We spent longer getting dressed than we did outside. Oh well!

We made lots and lots of cookies. LE is super sensitive to noises, so even the mixer was a little too loud for her. I'll do a separate post on the cookie details. One day, we conducted a bake-off between two recipes to figure out which is our favorite. Another day, I made loads of chocolate rollout cookies topped with a mint ganache and sprinkles for a cookie exchange that got cancelled by the blizzard. On Christmas Eve, we made gingerbread cookies and decorated with royal icing (I'll let you guess which ones were LE's!). It was lots of fun, and our neighbors received most of them. :)

My dad's parents came up to visit one day. As you may have seen on Instagram, we think Hannah looks a lot like Grandma U.

LE's Godfather, Michael, stopped for a last minute visit, too. LE had a fun time playing with him for the evening.

And John's parents stopped by on their way up and back from northern Wisconsin, where they spent Christmas. Of course, LE picked out her Cardinals shirt to wear for breakfast with them.

I'll do a separate post on Christmas Day and the couple of days after. For now, this has already been an enormous post! December was a busy month!