Cookies with Aunt Ashley

And the winner.... for the best Aunt in the entire world goes to. . . . . Aunt Ashley! (applause)

This Christmas Aunt Ashy brought over bags of cookie mixes, cutters, frostings and sprinkles galore to have a christmas cookie blitz!

 Here you can see the gingerbread cookies

 Adorable cookie makers

 The three most beautiful, creative, amazing girls in my life.

 Stiring things up

 Cookie Decor 101

 Wow! What a spread! They look beautiful girls! And delicious too!

Thank you Aunt Ashley!

Building the Braid Castle - Windows Part 2

 Here is what the two windows Nathan boarded up looked like this last week. Beautiful, I know. :) 

My He-Man of a husband enjoys demo-work. 

(He works as a ninja part-time on the weekends)

"Hi - YAA!"

"What's up now?"

Installing the window in Liam's room

From the exterior (without trim)

One of the windows in the Master

THE Master. :) Looks great Sweetie!
. . . Oh yeah, and the windows look good too. ;)

Frosty

Wednesday we made our first snowman of the year (and the first at this house). When I say we, I mean me. The girls didn't want to wear their gloves (they are a a little too big - keep falling off) so I was left to build the body. But they had a great time finding rocks and sticks for the face and arms and getting her all cozy in her hat, scarf and gloves. :) They wanted it to be a snowlady but couldn't resist calling her Frosty.

Building the Braid Castle - Windows Part 1

Our new windows were delivered today! :) (all but the big ones in the living room and the kitchen) It is so exciting to know that these ugly, drafty windows from 1948 will no longer be gracing our home with their presence. Last week in preparation for their arrival, Nathan removed a couple and reframed them in so that we could get exact measurements for the new ones. (He then boarded them up for the week that it took them to be manufactured.) I am excited to have been able to buy them from a local manufacturer: Cascade Windows, made here right in Spokane. I try to keep our money here in Spokane when we are able. 

 Here is Nathan taping up the glass before he removes the window.

 Unscrewing the screws that hold the window onto the nailing flange in the concrete.

Chiseling out the brick accent on the bottom of the window.

 Kind of scary to see a hole of that size in my son's room! 

Thankfully Nathan was able to board it up air-tight so his room was nice and toasty that night.

A visit with "Santa"

 This Sunday we went to go visit "Santa". 

Grandpa has a friend who owns a sourdough sandwich shop on the south hill and had agreed to dress up as Santa for a few hours. So we took the kids and didn't tell them it was Grandpa. (We don't play the Santa game - Rosen understands that it is all pretend and that the real St. Nicholas died a long time ago). I think Rosen caught on right away but didn't say anything, just went along with it. But we got Naomi hook, line and sinker! :) She was very shy and when I asked her who he was she said (in her cute two-year-old way) "Tanta Cause". Even after Rosen grew tired of us pretending and blurted out "Santa's Grandpa!" Naomi still didn't catch on. I didn't have the heart to correct her. She can believe he's real for now. I think she'd just be very confused if I tried to explain it to her at this point. 

First Gingerbread House

The girls had a sleep-over at Grandma & Grandpa's house this weekend. As you can see they had a blast decorating this work of art. I would think that if I were responsible for such a masterpiece that I would want to keep it but all the girls want to do is eat it. :) I, wanting to enjoy it longer, told them they have to wait until after Christmas. (I'm such a mean mom)