Holiday Fun with Lots of Cookies!

This year December was definitely filled with fun, fun, fun!  It's different now that Eulee isn't a newborn.

This was definitely the year of the cookie for us.  I spent a whole weekend just making cookies and treats...both for ourselves and for our friends.  You all know that I'm more of a cake person, but this year I decided to try lots of new cookie recipes--

Vanilla Icebox Cookies turned it into Santa cookies that I saw in a magazine.  The kids loved helping me with this one.  I called them my "little elves" because they were just putting marshmallows and mini-m&m's on.  It's amazing how quickly all the melted candy melts would harden up, so I had to have the kids work quickly.  We were all laughing about it!  Eli was so excited to hand these out to his classmates and teachers.  

Chocolate and Vanilla Pinwheel Icebox Cookies.  It was really difficult to roll up into a pinwheel, but it actually turned out very pretty and yummy.  

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies.  These were super easy and super tasty.  Not too sweet at all.  

Peppermint Chocolate Bark.  Elina really wanted to make a food item for her classmates and teachers this year.  I thought bark would give us the greatest yield and would be the easiest for Elina to do by herself.  She had so much fun making it and it was so delicious, too!  

Oreo Truffles.  My friend KL reminded me how yummy these little treats are, so I just had to make some to eat and to give away.  Plus, they were so pretty!

Rice Krispy Trees. The kids had so much fun making these things....a little too much fun. I ended up with some trees that were huge and chubby and lopsided. It was hilarious!

Holiday Cookies.  This year I made a glaze for the cookies and it turned out better than decorating with the tubes of gel and icing.  Tasted better and looked better, too.  The kids (and B) are really making some nice-looking cookies these days, right?

Not only did we make a million treats, but it seemed like everyone was giving us treats this holiday season as well!  We had cookies and treats coming out of our ears!!

Other than this, we also had Elina and Eli's class Christmas parties.

Both involved making gingerbread houses, which is always fun!  I was one of the parents in charge of Eli's party, so B and I were up until 1am one night just hot gluing graham crackers into houses onto plates.  I think B said, "I didn't sign up for this" a few times.  =)  But I was glad we did it because the kids had so much fun with it.  Then I added in our tradition of giving out ribbons and using our karaoke microphone to announce the kids' names.  They totally loved it!

Evie also had her music class Christmas party.  The kids did a book exchange and had yummy holiday treats.  

Eli also had his Holiday Traditions presentation where he had to tell the class about the things we do as a family during the holidays.  Eli was so excited to tell his friends about our traditions and he did a great job.  It was a lot of hard work to paint the poster board, draw pictures and write everything down.  We had to do just a little each day, but he made it!

On top of all this, we still had all our Advent calendar activities each day.  Make paper snowflakes (the kids loved making up their own designs!).  Decorate the bedroom doors.  See Santa.

Buy and wrap sibling gifts.  See Christmas lights while drinking hot cocoa.

 Leave a love note under someone's pillow.  Make someone else's bed.  Make cinnamon ornaments.  Fun! Fun!

Elina also had a Christmas party of her own for our family.  She started working on this thing 4 days before Christmas because she was so excited!  She had hot cocoa, treats, music, a dance performance by Evie (Definitely a big hit!  I LOVE that Evie even pauses during the performance to do a "serious" move.  How does she come up with this stuff?  It's not a wonder she is starting dance class in January.),
 
and a marshmallow tossing game.  B was definitely the star of the show for this game.  The rest of us are just awful at catching marshmallows in our mouths!  We all had great fun!

My favorite participant was Evie.  I loved how prepared she was with her mouth wide open...eyes closed and everything!

Then we also did our family gingerbread house contest twice at the house.  (But more details on that later!)

Phew!  I love Christmas, but it is truly a busy season.  Busy in so many different ways. And I have to say that it is NOT fun to MAKE fun for your kids all the time.  It's a lot of work.  You prep it, you supervise, then you clean most of it up.  I mean, it's so fun while you're doing the activities...and I love seeing the kids' faces.  But the pre- and post- work are not my favorite parts.  The holidays are lots of fun!!