Christmas Cookie Extravaganza 2009

Thanks to our beautiful new kitchen and perfect work island, Christmas Cookie Extravaganza 2009 was held our our house this year. Megan was super excited to make cookies. The first morning of this 2 day process, Megan wake up and the first thing she said was "I wake up, make cookies!"

Cutting out tiny Christmas trees just for her.

She new exactly what to do when it came to decorating her cookies. As you can see we had many options for her.

She took her time to spread the icing.

She took her time to "accidentally" spread icing on her fingers. (Note: Our Chefs are not required to wear pants while in the kitchen. But only because the laundry staff didn't want to bother with food coloring stains!)

Watching Grandma very carefully to learn how to use a pastry bag to get really fun details on cookies. Because the prettier they look, the less calories they have! :)

After her quick lesson she was off. We couldn't get her cookies fast enough she was a decorating machine!

Her snowflake she embellished all by herself. She knew to put icing on all of the tips. I don't know about you, but all of us were impressed at her skill (remember she's 2)

A small, very small portion of our finished products.

Even Angie and Riley Ringman couldn't resist decorating cookies, it's addicting.

It was great fun spending 2 days make cookies and other treats. It made the hard work and $$$ for our new kitchen worthwhile. I love our new kitchen, can't wait for more family kitchen adventures.

Coming soon: Christmas pictures and pictures from our Chicago trip!

Playing in the snow!

Megan was very excited to wake up one morning and see the ground covered in snow. We only had about an inch, but Megan was more than willing to get all bundled up to go play outside. She found a perfect set of "antler". If there would have been more snow I/we would have attempted to make a reindeer snow blob, but instead we just played.

After about 10 minutes, Megan asked for her rake.

Pretty!

Megan wasn't really able to grasp the concept of snow angels. She laid down by herself and then acted like she knew how to move her arms, but then she just kind of laid like this. Maybe next year, with lots of practice, she'll be able to make a snow angel.

She wanted to walk around the the backyard, and I just thought her tracks were cute.

Where's Megan? She kept wanting to walk over to the stone wall that our neighbors have. She is hard to see, but I just thought it was a interesting picture with the snow sticking to the trees.

Then Megan followed multiple squirrel tracks to the other corner of our yard and wanted to stand on a tree stump (because she saw a squirrel do it) So all in all we didn't really play IN the snow too much, we just kind of explored the snow covered yard. Megan thought it was great, now all we need is a snowfall that will give us enough snow to build things! (but not a crazy amount of snow, and after I have already gone grocery shopping)

The Lights Before Christmas

It started with a thought, and through the wonders of Facebook, all of us managed to organize a trip to the Toledo Zoo to take the kids to see The Lights Before Christmas. How all of us had a free Sunday during the crazy holiday season, I don't know, but it was fun that everyone could make it.

From left to right: Kay Barber with Grace (4yrs) Jay Barber with Owen (4yrs) Mark with Megan (2yrs) Wes Harrington with Alex (almost 2yrs) and Mike Olsaver with Rosemary (3yrs)

The start of all the lights!

Megan all bundled up and hitching a ride on Daddy's shoulders.

Tip of the day: when small children are bundled up in winter coats and snow pants, they are slippery and hard to hold onto for long periods of time. Plan accordingly!

Megan in a daze and not looking at the camera. I tried my best but Megan was busy watching the lights on the trees dance to the music, watching her friends dancing in front of the dancing trees, she was frozen and she probably couldn't hear me. Add all of that up and I never really got a good picture.

Hey, there's a smile!

I don't think any of the parents got a good picture of the kids. Just too many things to look at.

At one point Megan and Alex wanted to hold hands while we walked. But due to thick mittens they couldn't figure out how to hold hands. They tried all sorts of different grasping techniques, but nothing worked. I think what finally worked was me in the middle holding their hands and we walked.

To end the evening, one more picture and a heavenly hot chocolate to go!

The coolest tree lights ever! All of us from little to big thought these lights were fun. My little camera didn't do the best job but I think you get the idea. It was really hard to focus my camera so I'm sorry if anyone gets nauseous watching the video.

Decorating with a 2 year old

So far this year Megan has been all about Christmas. She helped me put up lights outside, she helped pick out new Christmas books at the bookstore (which we read multiple times a day) and she couldn't wait to help decorate the Christmas tree. A few days before I took this video, she helped her Grandma decorate her tree. So she did have some practice, but for the most part she knew what to do.
What, they're stocking rights!?! More then once, Megan walked around the house with her "stockings" on. She thought is was hilarious to wear them, but then she hung them up. She's cute.

Sometimes she just amazes me. She was so gentle with the ornaments and would really think about where she wanted to put them. She' 2...that just baffles me when I think about it. In fact, I took this video after I had to clean up a mess the dogs made, we were dog sitting Rudy. She took it upon herself to unwrap the ornaments and continued decorating while I was busy. I'll just take that as a sign that she is going to love Christmas as much as me.

The never ending pile of leaves!

Megan has played with her rake all summer long. She tried to rake pine cones, the grass and I think a couple bugs as well. So she was super excited to actually rake leaves at our new house. (just in case you didn't know, we have a million and one huge trees that all produce billions of leaves for us to clean up)

So annoying when your rake gets clogged with leaves!

Needless to say the raking didn't last to long, Megan was ready to play! She would play a little bit, then rake and then go back to playing. She had fun.

Yeah, she had fun in the big piles of leaves. Too cute!

I couldn't resist taking a couple videos of her playing in the leaves, she was having too much fun. Just an FYI in one of the videos she was trying to tell me that "Daddy is wearing ear muffs" just in case you were trying to figure that out.

Thanksgiving, "Christmas" and a Zamboni?

I think Megan was just a little tired after Thanksgiving round 1 at Grandma-greats house. Mark and I laughed so hard when we looked back and saw Megan sound asleep like this. She only slept for about 20 minutes during our road trip from West Unity, OH to Ann Arbor, MI she was just so excited to see her cousins.
After Thanksgiving round 2, we decided to open our not so secret, Secret Santa gifts for the kids/aunts/uncles. Megan learned very quick that opening presents was fun and she wanted to help everybody else open their gifts.

All of the kids are getting so big. They are all so cute, it was great seeing them.

Conary was exhausted! I don't think he was used to Liam's sleep schedule, poor guy. I just hope he was able to sleep on the drive to his hockey tournament the next day.

Megan and Liam showing off their Dala Horse from Sweden. Uncle Jesper and Aunt Lisa have purchased these horses for all of the kids. Megan and Liam both were very excited to have their own horse.

PIE!!! Blueberry pie...so good! There was 3 different kinds of yummy pumpkin pie, but Megan wanted blueberry.

I braved this group by myself to watch the hockey game. Everyone except Aunt Tracie and Conary we at the game, but our seats were kind of everywhere. We had Mark's work tickets so I had all of the girls in the 4 seats so they could sit with each other. The only rule was that they had to pound on the glass when Adrian scored. Of course they were very well behaved and I think that surprised a lot of people when they saw me walk in with all of them.

Mark joined us for the 3rd period.

We signed Crystal up to ride the Zamboni during the second intermission, but she got bumped so a grandchild of the tournament sponsor could ride. But since Mark knows the rink manager, he said Crystal could ride after the game. It was way past her bedtime but while she was waiting for her turn she had fun running around on the ice.

Does she look like she is excited? Megan was just as excited to watch her cousin ride on the Zamboni. Megan still randomly talks about Crystal on the Zamboni and somehow I think she will mention it for awhile.

Crystal being Crystal. She is always so animated, I love it! Keep in mind that she is doing this in an empty arena, just think of how much she would have hammed this up if she had an audience!

As you can see it was a great few days with family. Can't wait for all of us to get together again. We always have so much fun and all of the cousins love to just hang out and play, that is something to be thankful for! Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.