Lisa, Gracie, Anna and Tim

Christmas has come and gone faster than I anticipated! In fact I didn't believe Tim when he told me it was New Year's Eve, I was sure there were still more days left in December. I've since accepted that it is indeed 2011.

What was Christmas like here? Simple, quiet, and very nice. Christmas Eve we got to go on a sleigh ride through a neighborhood with beautiful Christmas lights. Gracie LOVED it!! The sleigh was pulled by enormous horses and we sang carols as we looked at the lights, it was a lot of fun. Then we enjoyed a yummy dinner- my first time cooking a ham and it was a hit! Then my favorite tradition. We read Luke 2 and sang some Christmas songs. It was a really nice evening. The best part was simply being together as a family. From Thanksgiving to Christmas, we don't see a lot of Tim so having him home was wonderful. The girls adore their daddy and loved having him home.

Christmas morning was fun. We all loved the thrill of unwrapping presents and playing with new things. I love sitting around in pj's all day and having and entire day to be lazy, and that's just what we did! With such a grand day where are the pictures you may be asking? Well, here's a sad story:

Once upon a time there was a mom who was baking cookies with her little girl. The baking was not a rushed affair. It took days to complete the task. It began one night after dinner when there was some extra time before bed. The little girl had been begging her mom to eat cookies and the best solution was to make some together. So the baking began with making some gingerbread dough. After everything was mixed to perfection, the dough was placed in the fridge. The next night after dinner they carefully took the dough out and began cutting out cookies. Together they rolled out the dough, then the little girl would choose what shape to use, together they would cut out cookie after cookie until the pan was full. Then the cookies were placed in the oven and 10 agonizing minutes went by as the cookies baked. Finally they were done and the tasting began. What was the final opinion? Mmmmm, mmmmmm, good! After eating, a cookie (or two or three...) the little girl went to bed and the mommy finished rolling out the dough and cutting out the cookies and baking them. The next night after dinner, there was a request for cookies! Well, the cookies still weren't finished so, together the mom and little girl frosted those cookies and finally they were done. They were the prefect combination of soft cookie and sweet icing.

Oh, wait, this really is a sad story and here's why. The night when the little girl helped her mommy cut out the cookies was so much fun the mom had to take some pictures! So she took out the camera and captures the delight of the little girl as she helped with the dough.

After all, nothing says happy little girl better than a flour covered shirt and dough in your hands! Then the mom wanted to capture her tiny daughter as she enjoyed the cookie making in her own way.

Climbing through the chair was such fun. Well, it was fun until she banged her head and the tears came. Then the mom picked her up and wanted to get one last shot of her little girl making the final cookies.

Here's the tragedy. Holding a crying baby and a camera with cookie dough covered hands proved too much. The camera wasn't ready for that kind of handling and decided to jump to it's demise. It landed flat on it's back. Oh NOOOOOO! The mom didn't give up just yet, the lens was still out so maybe there was life somewhere in there, but no amount of jiggling, flipping it on and off, or replacing the battery was able to restore life to it. So, to this day there is only a shell of a camera and this cookie adventure was the last event documented by said camera.

What a terrible time to lose such a valuable piece of equipment :( To this day, it is still waiting to be replaced. Luckily I married a photographer and we do have another camera. Only, I don't really understand how to use it. So Tim is now the official 'moment capturerer' and I the 'moment director'.

Here are the few pics I took before the camera died. I love this one of Gracie wearing her stockings- I mean they used to use real socks right?!

decorating (or undecorating, I can't remember which) the tree

This one's for you dad! Anna doing fish lips. She does them all the time while she eats but it was really hard to capture it on camera because when she saw the camera she would break out in a huge smile!