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!

the first (real) snow

It snowed our first real snow of the season on Sunday, December 9. We have had a couple of days of flurries before, but this was the first snow that actually accumulated.

John took Monday off of work since he has been traveling so much lately, and we got to build our first ever snowman. The snow packed well and was the perfect type for building a snowman.

LE had a wardrobe malfunction and lost her mittens. It looks like she's holding an invisible snowball here, but I really think she was just brushing the snow off of her hands.

Fast forward a ball or two, and here's John putting on the finishing touches! Coal for the eyes and buttons, a carrot for the nose, and cranberries for the mouth. We don't live near many trees, so we don't have arms yet. We did bring home some of LE's "trees" from the tree farm; maybe we could add those in later.

Here are the proud snowman creators with the finished product. The snowman looks really cute in our backyard.

Speaking of really cute, we can't forget Hannah! She was there, too. It's not really all that easy to take photos and try to rock a baby at the same time.

During LE's nap, John went out to buy a super tall ladder to put up our Christmas lights. H and I helped (mostly moral support mixed with a little ladder support). We snapped a couple of photos with our phone.

trimming the tree & cookies with friends

John left for a trip the day after we brought our glorious tree inside, so I set up the tripod to capture just a couple of photos of the girls and me. I wasn't going for award-winning photos here; I just wanted to document that I was, in fact, present, too! 

LE and I decorated our tree together while Hannah napped. This was the only time that she was allowed to touch the tree. Surprisingly, this hasn't even been a temptation for her.

After the last ornament was hung, LE snatched up her whole collection of nativity kings and Christmas sock monkeys (she has 4) and demanded, "Take a picture!"

We then went to my friend Monica's house for a quick cookie decorating playdate. Monica has two kiddos-- Oliver and Natalie-- whom LE adores. "Olligar" is a year older than LE, and "Nallie" is a year younger. 

In case you weren't aware, decorating cookies is very serious business.

Advent traditions are well underway!

Picking out our tree

A couple of weeks ago, we went as a family to pick out our tree from a cute little tree farm just up the road. We have always gotten table top trees in the past, so this was our first year to go cut down our own. Actually, two years ago we went to this same farm to cut down a tree. It had just snowed and was beautiful, but the crowds coupled with sticker shock scared us away.

We went on a weekday this year, and we were the only ones there, which is a good thing because we had no idea what we wanted. LE picked out this "tree."

Hannah was unsure. ;)

We continued to look a little bit longer until we found the perfect one. 

Here she is!

We made our way back to the barn.

One of us got a little distracted.

The lady there shared with us that if you have a nest fall from your tree, you'll have good luck.

We waited as the Shakee shook the loose needles and potential nests out of the tree.

Annnd, we got one! (LE doesn't care.)

John and the lady bound it up.

 And got it on the car.

Success!