Holiday Top 10

December has flown by SO quickly.  It feels like we've had the perfect mix of relaxing time at home and fun holiday events.  Olive had four different events at school this month. We've had church activities, fun with friends, Christmas events and more.  Even though it's been a fun month, I'll be excited for a quiet January when we turn the calendar to 2020.

Here's our Holiday Top 10

1.  Baking Christmas Cookies
I love baking all year, but Christmas baking seems really special.  My mom always made sugar cookies so I do the same.  I baked a mix of chocolate chip cookies and sugar cookies.  We kept some and then made plates of cookies to share with our neighbors.

This picture makes me laugh... it perfectly captures my life in this season.  I was trying to snap a picture of my 23 week baby bump and later realized all three kids were in the picture.  Olive and Fletcher are always right by my side so seeing their little feet in this picture made me smile.

Letting everything cool and dry before plating.   Aren't these tin Santa plates cute!?!

2. Neighbor Treats
A sweet couple surprised us with a plate of homemade Christmas goodies.  Best fudge I've ever eaten!

3. Baking with Kids
I decided to rethink my Christmas baking a bit this year.  My kids LOVE to help me bake, but if I'm baking for other people, I usually try do it all myself.  I don't want any kid germs hopping on the plates.  I decided to save them each a ball of cookie dough to let them roll out, cut out and decorate some cookies for themselves.  I helped a little when they asked, but I let them do the process themselves.  They were THRILLED to get the opportunity to join in the baking fun.  I think a new Christmas tradition was born!

3. Olive's Class Christmas Party
I planned the activities and we had a great time!  It was PJ/Polar Express Day, too.  We stacked jumbo marshmallows to build a snowman and then had all the parts for a snowman toss game.  You got one point for every item that landed in the correct snowman spot.  The kids also decorated wooden ornaments to give to their parents.

4. Olive's Christmas Program
We loved seeing Olive perform the songs she's been working so hard on this season!

5.  Mimi Came to Town
My Mom drove up to see us for a couple days.  We did some fun shopping together, ate yummy food and got to go to Olive's program.

6. Christmas Train
We went to see the lights in the park on the Christmas train.

7. Grinch Day
Olive isn't a fan of The Grinch, but still managed to have fun at Grinch Day at school.  Fletcher and I came in to help make this cute craft.

8. Date Night
I booked our favorite babysitters and we had a great date night.  We ran a few last minute Christmas errands and enjoyed all the festivities.

9. Christmas Organization
I felt really organized and on top of things this year.  I got my shopping done early, saved boxes to wrap all our gifts and got my wrapping done early.  I remembered to use Rakuten for my online purchases, kept good lists and didn't stress about gift giving.  I got to enjoy the holiday season even more because I planned ahead.  In years past, I did all my wrapping on Christmas Eve and told myself never again :)

10. Snow Days!!
We were forecasted to get up to 6 inches of snow last week.  We were hopeful it would happen, but a little skeptical at the same time.  Imagine our surprise when we actually got the 6 inches over a couple of days.  Olive missed one day of school and then had a two hour delay. 

We played in the snow for several days.  The pictures are from the first snow of 3-4 inches.  We got a couple more inches later in the day.  We had snow much fun playing in the snow!   And Scrappy the outdoor cat that kind of came with our house showed back up after not seeing him since last winter.  Not sure where he's been, but he looks happy, healthy and hungry.

Both kids really enjoyed the snow this year.  They bundled up really well and were in no hurry to come inside.  I think it helps that we had great quality snow jackets, mittens, snow boots, hats and overalls (and that they agreed to wearing them!!).

Thanks for sticking with me on this long post!!  It was fun to round up some fun highlights from the month of December before Christmas.