Decorating our way to Christmas

With Christmas right around the corner we're making, baking or decorating something every other day. Jackson and I made 10 doz monster cookies for the "Giving Tree" program that the whole family will be volunteering at this Friday. We also made a lot of cut out Christmas cookies (see below) for his school Christmas party and the neighbors. I didn't get photos of this, but Jackson and I also made homemade dog biscuits and gave them to some of our favorite canine friends. Like I said, we've been doing a lot of making, baking and decorating!

I can sum up the last few weeks with some photos and captions...

Happy boys after ingesting raw cookie dough and sprinkles while making the Christmas cookies.

 

 



We decorated the next night...we had to pace ourselves with the sugar consumption. : )

I love that he has no idea he has a chunk of green frosting on his face.

 



Helping me roll out the cookie dough.

 



He likes to vacuum, I can't stand it. We're a good team. Even with all the clean up, I'm finding rogue sprinkles on the floor.

 



 We had another family over last weekend to decorate gingerbread houses. Chris gets credit for constructing the houses from cardboard boxes. We've tried using real gingerbread as well as graham crackers and all of them were a giant FAIL. Cardboard works awesome!

 
 

The houses are done and the kids have bolted. We had a really great time doing this!

 

How do you clean up after such a huge mess? You take the top drop cloth, fold it up and throw it away. Voilà, clean!

We also took in an exhibit called "Discover the Dinosaurs". As you might imagine the kids were in awe. Jackson and his three buddies were like ping pongs at this place. I can't believe we didn't lose someone.

The photo above and below are from Chris and I's impromptu date night last Friday.

Let me back up...Jackson was invited to his first sleepover. So, while he went to the Gamblers hockey game and spent the night at a friend's house Chris and I decided to make the most of the child-free evening. We started out at a place called "Painting, Pottery or Bead It" where we made a glass bowl using other pieces of glass that we cut and glued to our base glass. The establishment will fire the piece and "slump" it so it's concave and can be used as a bowl. This really was a lot of fun and we now have a beautiful piece to remind us of the evening.

We wrapped up our date at A's Music Cafe while we enjoyed a few choice beverages, the livly atmosphere and some great music. The bass cello and drummer were amazing! 

 

This is a poor quality photo but it was dark and was taking using Chris' iPhone.