Christmas Morning

Last year's Christmas was a little sparse since David was unemployed and we were living off the last fumes of our savings. Our families came through to give us a wonderful Christmas and the girls were none the wiser that we didn't have much to give that year. So I fully admit that this Christmas I may have overdone it a bit. In my defense, I didn't really mean to. I started buying up gifts here and there starting in October and by mid-December, I realized that I'd maybe bought a little too much. I contemplated holding back some of the gifts and saving them for later, but since Adelaide and Zara have birthdays in May and August, respectively, I just decided that we'd wrap them all and try to be more conscientious next year.

The stockings and presents awaiting the girl's arrival Christmas morning. David's family does most of their festivities and present opening on Christmas Eve so we spent our evening with them. The girls each got to open one present from us-- a new set of pajamas. The girls got into bed late (and we were up late putting together one of their presents) so we were all thankful that we got to sleep in till 8:00.

Zara immediately hightailed it to the crown in her stocking. Both Adelaide and Zara got new crowns.

Adelaide is so excited to have her stocking. Also her new pajamas are gigantic on her. Hopefully they will shrink and she will grow so she'll get some use of them this winter.

And Zara finally gives me a smile.

In addition to their tiaras, the girls both got little puppies, a puzzle, Play-Doh, LipSmackers, and two pieces of See's candy in their stockings.

Zara got a replacement Elsa doll to replace the one she got for her birthday that she promptly lost. She also got a tea set from her Aunt Cassy (which was a big hit), the movie Brave with an accompanying Merida dress, a kitty scarf and hat, and the Disney Princess Cupcake Party Game which we have now played approximately 1,467 times.

I love this face. So much personality in this little lady.

Adelaide was given the companion Anna doll to Zara's Elsa doll, some books, a new blanket (that matches the one she loves and is wearing thin), and a little plush rolly backpack.

The girls also receive joint presents of toy food and pots and pans and a Melissa and Doug pizza party set to be used with their big Christmas gift-- a play kitchen. We got it from Ikea many months ago and set it up Christmas Eve after the girls went to bed.

It was a big hit and they spent most of Christmas morning playing with their new toys, having tea parties and concocting new and interesting dishes.

(And because I often forget, I got David a hodgepodge of assorted gifts including a new gray shirt, purple tie, and tie pin (with Pi engraved in it), new pajamas, dress socks, book lights (for when he reads to the girls), a new computer game and a small Christmas Lego ornament.

David bought me a print of one of my favorite paintings (which I need to get framed), a Cuisinart Griddler, some jewelry, and a year's supply of Burt's Bee's chapstick. (Okay, maybe a few month's supply. I burn through the stuff.) It was a wonderful Christmas.)

Scenes from the Park

This past Saturday the weather was splendidly nice so we got outside and visited one of our favorite parks. Zara was determined to climb to the top of the "spider web" which she was able to do with David's help and Adelaide just wanted to swing. She would swing all day if we let her. I'm glad we got out this weekend because now both girls are sick and we're confined to the house for the time being. It's going to be a long week.

Holiday Baking 2014 Edition

One of the Christmas traditions I most fondly remember of my youth was helping my mom with the annual Christmas baking. We would make tons of cookies, fudge, and divinity to divvy up and pass out to friends and neighbors. It's something I've always done and it was great to do it again after a break last year. I may have gone a little overboard with how much I baked but I had a very eager helper in the form of Zara. Even though I gave a lot of our goodies away, I still have way too much left. 

I normally vary what I make each year but I always ALWAYS make sugar cookies. I don't make them often because how time intensive they are but I think they're my favorite ones to eat. Zara was very excited to help with the sugar cookies, but most of her creations aren't pictured. They were very light on the frosting and very heavy on the sprinkles. I also ran out of red food coloring so my stockings were a light pink rather than Christmas-y red. 

I made two types of fudge. I made this Rocky Road Fudge and Creamy Chocolate Fudge. The rocky road fudge wasn't as creamy or fudgey as I had wanted but the chocolate fudge (one side was plain and the other I topped with toffee bits) was delicious. I'd never made fudge that way before and I was skeptical at first but it did turn out really well. 

I also made angel thumbprint cookies which we used to always make as a kid. They were also more time intensive than I remembered and not as good. I don't know that I'll be making them again next year. 

I rounded out my baking with two new cookie recipes, a chocolate and butterscotch chip cookie and peppermint patty chocolate cookies. I think the peppermint patty cookies were my favorite of all the new recipes I tried this year. I love the combination of chocolate and mint which just feels so perfect for this holiday season. 

I think I'm going to go eat another cookie. I hope your holiday baking was just as successful and enjoyable this year. 

Handmade Christmas

I was super ambitious this year and decided to hand make gifts for my nieces and nephews. But my ambition faded pretty rapidly so most of them (on David's side) didn't get a handmade gift. But I did finish gifts for a few of them. Most of them, I think, turned out really great. 

These are the gifts I made for my sister's four kids. I'm pretty proud of these. 

These two bags were made for her oldest children, James and Anna, who both got kid's tablets for Christmas. I designed the bags to fit the dimensions of their Kindles and then lined each of them with quilt batting for extra protection. 

The bag with the S was made for Seth, who's Zara's age. Inside was Play-Doh and some cookie cutters. I thought this bag would be really quick but it actually took way longer than I anticipated. 

The snake was made for her youngest boy, Ian. It was fun to make but stuffing that thing actually took forever and I had to use an interesting combination of a spoon and a chopstick to get all that batting to the very end of the tail. 

Here's a few of the other things I made. I made blocks for the youngest babies in the family and I made the bag in the middle for my brother's daughter Grisette. That one turned out really cute. I also made a few bags for the littlest girls on David's side. Those bags are really easy and fast to make. They take less than an hour. 

I wish I had been able to tackle all the projects I had originally wanted to but I'm happy with how everything turned out that I did get to make. Handmade Christmas is a lot of fun. 

Jamestown and Yorktown

One of the few things we were able to do before I was laid out by my sickness was a trip to Jamestown and Yorktown. Along with Colonial Williamsburg, these are called the Historic Triangle. We'd visited Colonial Williamsburg several times but had not made it to either Jamestown or Yorktown. We decided to break them up into two visits spread over two days which was a good idea. 

On Monday, we visited Jamestown. Because my sister has a son named James, Zara was very excited to visit "his town" and kept telling him so. Afterwards, she asked us when we'd get to go to Annastown (Anna being her other cousin). We tried to explain that Jamestown was named for King James and that there was no Annastown or Sethtown but she didn't quite get it. 

Jamestown starts with a good-sized museum which details the life, culture, and interaction of the Native Americans, British settlers, and African slaves who inhabited this region in the 1600's. It was a reasonably well-done museum, although showing its age a little bit. I learned a few interesting things before heading to the replica of the Indian village and James Fort.

Zara insisted on taking photographs. I have about 30 pictures of wood, leaves, chickens, and chickens with leaves.

Zara did not find the colonial costume very fun. And normally she loves to dress up....

The houses are replicas of the wattle and daub constructions that were originally built at the Fort. The church was my favorite, with its beautiful exposed beams.

The best part probably (and Zara's favorite) was visiting the replica ships, the Discovery, Susan Constant, and Godspeed.

All I can say is that I would most certainly have not survived a long Atlantic sea voyage in one of these tiny vessels.

Zara loved the ships and wanted to keep exploring them.

On Tuesday, we visited Yorktown Victory Center which celebrates the Revolutionary War time period and the battles at Yorktown. The museum was oddly arranged and small but I did enjoy their outdoor Revolutionary War camp and the 1780's replica tobacco farm. They are building an immense new museum complex on the site which should be finished by 2016. I'm sure the new facility is going to be amazing and I hope we'll get a chance to visit it again someday.

I'm glad we were able to fit in a little history on our trip. It's nice to have a husband who is so indulgent of my need to visit every museum I possibly can.

A Bellyful of Coughs

At the beginning of November I developed a cough. It wasn't even a terribly bad cough--it wasn't the kind that fill your lungs with fluid and burn your chest--but it was persistent. I'd get on coughing jags that would make it impossible to breathe but they weren't debilitating, I thought. It must have been worse than I thought, however, because somehow during one of these coughing fits I apparently cracked a rib on my right side, which now made coughing and sneezing annoying and incredibly painful. 

But I was feeling better by the time we drove up to Virginia to spend Thanksgiving with my sister and brother and I was looking forward to all the fun we'd have together. 

It was not to be. I think I felt okay for most of the week but by Thanksgiving, my cough was back in full force, now accompanied by bone-deep exhaustion and congestion. I was absolutely miserable. I was completely knocked out most of Thanksgiving and all of the Friday after. We had planned on driving back to Georgia on Saturday so we'd have Sunday to recover and I wasn't entirely sure I'd be able to make it. 

Fortunately, I felt better on Saturday and we were able to make it home in one piece. In fact, if we hadn't hit bad traffic on the I-85 outside of Atlanta, we would have made astoundingly good time. But I was still really bummed that I didn't get to enjoy much of Thanksgiving and doubly upset that I hadn't gotten to really spend much time with my family because I was passed out on the couch. (And I was only able to choke down one piece of pie. Tragedy.) 

Since returning from Virginia, my health has been very slow to return. Most of last week was spent between the couch and my bed, dragging myself about in a sicked induced haze. My attempt at grocery shopping was equal parts tragic and comical. As luck would have it, Zara and Adelaide both joined me in unpleasant sickness but theirs was thankfully not as potent as mine. 

Now, almost two weeks later, I'm finally starting to feel like myself again, slowly but surely. I haven't been this sick in a long time and it has made me really appreciate my general state of good health. I really hope this cough finally clears up for good, especially before Christmas. I don't want to miss another holiday. Thankfully my rib is mostly healed, just a little tender, especially if I've been coughing a lot. My sinuses are clearing up and my cough comes and goes, but doesn't interrupt my sleep. 

Here's to hoping all of our health returns. And with it, more blog posting. 

Chick-fil-A Days

Every so often, maybe once or twice a month, I'll reach my limit and in order to give everyone a break, I'll take the girls to Chick-fil-A for an hour or two. We'll order a large waffle fry, a shake or a lemonade and after eating our snack, I'll unleash the girls into the enclosed indoor play area. They remain largely contained and I get to sip my drink and read for an hour with little interruption. There's often a few other kids in there and they make friends fast. Zara reenacts Frozen while Adelaide climbs up the slide or hangs off the poles.

I don't necessarily love Chick-fil-A's food (I'm not much for most fast food chains) but Chick-fil-A excels in customer service and having a kid friendly environment. Plus, I live in Atlanta, the home of Chick-fil-A, so there's one really close to my house. With the cold weather settling in,  we've all been cooped up too long and today was a perfect day for a visit.