White Christmas

We had a white Christmas this year!! You are thinking that it isn't even Christmas yet but since we will be driving to VA for Christmas and have limited trunk space we decided to have a little Christmas here so we didn't have to haul the kids' presents down there to be opened.

I was excited that it snowed the night before. Not enough to hide the grass but we will take what we can get! (I would have included a picture but it was too dark, the lights weren't on, or it was too cold, blah, blah, blah.)

The snow helped get us in the mood, so to speak, but we also had a couple other evenings spent making goodies-and we all know that is a must come holiday time!

I decided to try participating in a cookie exchange, hoping to get some variety on our goodie plates without having to make it myself. So, Chris and I went to work. We borrowed a cookie press and tried a recipe that we had never had or made before.

We used this

to make these spritz cookies .

I took these to exchange and got a great variety of wonderful treats. So wonderful, in fact, that Chris and Noah ate them all.

This meant that after getting the presents out under the tree

We needed to make more goodies. I had originally planned on making a few different things but come time to do it, well, I wimped out. We only made these

And these.

This morning we woke up before the boys and ended up waiting a while for them to get up. But once they were up we dived right in, unwrapping and enjoying gifts.

Noah and Dad helped Ian unwrap his present, a ball popper.

And while he was fascinated watching the balls pop out, he had an equal amount of fun throwing the balls for himself to chase.

I just have to mention these bowls that my mom got me for Christmas. They sat on my counter today looking so Christmas-y with my green kitchen walls. They are microwavable and dishwasher safe-apparently quite a rarity in plastic bowls. I am super excited about them because I have gone my entire marriage without a single microwavable mixing bowl!
And to cap off a fun day, Chris brought me home this

to replace this.

To those of you who sent us gifts we enjoyed them all thoroughly, thank you bunches! To those of you with whom we will be sharing actual Christmas, we can't wait!