Tuesday Fun

Today was Arabella's last art class for the Fall term. Over the course of the class, she has grown a lot and has really enjoyed herself. Today was no exception to that - she was very excited to hear a story about a Gingerbread Man and then do 3 crafts! She made a Gingerbread Man magnet that too adorable, and then we decorated Gingerbread Men cookies and finally we made a few ornaments out of no-bake dough. We will have to finish them at home since they need to dry before we can hang them on the tree. She was very excited to show Jay her projects when she got home and even enjoyed eating both of the cookies she decorated.


After art class, we took the long way home and drove by the lake shore to see all the snow since it seems as if it has been snowing for days. Oh, wait a minute, it has been! The sun is out now, but even so, there is very light snow coming down. It does make everything look beautiful and it is nice knowing that if it is really bad out or very cold, we don't have to go out in it! When we were driving along, Arabella kept asking for the beach and to make sand castles - but it is too cold for that now! Take a look...
They have snow clearing down to a science. It actually works great, other than taking up almost the whole road, but people just go around.

Yes, that is the frozen lake shore
If you look hard enough, there is still some unfrozen water in the distance.

The snow covered boat slips at one of the marinas.

Skating Update

Yesterday was Arabella's last skating lesson of the session. Even though she has a hard time making it through the whole half hour lesson, she has made great progress. I can't wait to take her to the rink in the park right up the street from our house to get some more practice in. Great job Arabella, keep up the good work, soon you will be skating circles around Mom and Dad!

Breakfast with Santa

Santa made a surprise visit to our playgroup on Friday morning. At least the kids were surprised, us moms on the other hand, were in on the secret! The kids were so excited at the prospect of Santa arriving, that when he walked in they were in awe. I don't think they actually thought he was going to show up. Arabella was not too sure what to make of Santa and I wasn't sure how she would react. Last year, she sat on his lap and had this look on her face like who is this person that you left me with. This year, from afar she liked Santa, she had a huge smile on her face and you could tell that she was excited, but she wouldn't leave my side. We were lucky to have our friend Sheila, photographer extraordinaire, take photos of the kids. When it came to Arabella's turn to sit on Santa's lap, she wouldn't let go of me and started screaming. So I had to go with her to see Santa and then she sat on my lap for the picture. So I am curious to see how it turned out, I am sure it is cute. Everyone brought a breakfast dish to pass and a gift for Santa to give each child. I made a very yummy "breakfast pizza" with fresh berries and mascarpone cheese. We had a great time and it was a fun way to spend a Friday morning!

Winter Wonderland

It started snowing yesterday with the lightest of flurries and as I write this now, it is still snowing out. When I woke up this morning at 5:45 to workout, I couldn't believe how beautiful it looked outside. Everything was covered in white and it was still snowing. I had to open the back door to peek out and everything was silent and pure. When Arabella woke up, she came down the stairs and looked out the window in the dining room, and was in awe of all the snow. It was precious. So we decided to skip art class this morning and play in the snow. I bundled Arabella up, the poor thing looked like Randy from the Christmas Story movie (and it reminded me of a line in the movie..."(s)he looked like a tick about to pop"), but it was pretty cold out (19 degrees and windy) and once I got dressed, we headed outside. She helped me shovel the walkway and then we got to watch the plow come and do the driveway. She liked watching that and thought it was funny how far the snow went into the air. We then trekked around the yard and she played on her swing for a little while. She was having so much fun, it was hard to get her to come inside for lunch. We enjoyed playing in the snow and I am sure that tomorrow we will head out for more snow fun!

Cookie Swap

Yesterday, Arabella and I hosted our 1st Cookie Swap. The house quickly filled with my favorite group of ladies and their kids. And the light snow falling outside put us all in the holiday mood. The kids had fun running through the house and destroying (in the best way) the playroom, while the moms enjoyed the cookies and company. We had the great variety of cookies to sample and each of us with home with a dozen of each other's cookies...so now we all have a variety of cookies without having to do all the baking! Each and every one was delicious! We had a great time and hope that his can become an annual celebration with our friends. Thanks to everyone who came and took part in our Cookie Swap!
Playroom chaos!
Sophia's first pizzelle!




The cookie spread!

Christmas Cookies

One of my favorite things to do during Christmas is to make cookies. So to prepare of the Cookie Swap that Arabella and I hosted on Monday morning, I turned our kitchen into an Italian bakery for the day on Sunday! I made cranberry-pistachio biscotti, pizzelles and anise sliced cookies. The pizzelles and anise cookies are favorites from my childhood and I even use the same recipe that my great-aunts used to use for the anise cookies. I spent the whole afternoon baking and I wouldn't have had it any other way. I house smelled so good and I know that Jay and Arabella are enjoying the fruits of my labor!

Biscotti Batter
Sliced biscotti waiting to be baked a second time.
Anise cookies before baking....
Anise cookies ready to be sliced and enjoyed!
Pizzelle batter before...

Pressed perfection!
Perfect stacks of pizzelles!

O Christmas Tree

Last week we went out in search of our Christmas tree. Usually, we go to a farm and cut one down, but I was only able to find one local place where you can do that and the cost was ridiculously high (at least $60, of not more). So we saw that Home Depot carried local trees, so we went and picked one out. It was little different than the in the States - all the trees are stacked up and the netting is still on them so you have no idea what the size or shape is like until you get it home. I jocking asked Jay if he thought we could return it if it was too bog or had really bad, gaping hole in the side! We found one that was actually semi-untied so we could kind of see the shape of the tree and it looked good so we loaded it up on Jay's company car and headed home!


Once we got the tree inside and the lights up, which was a fiasco itself, Arabella had a ball decorating the tree. She was so excited to see the ornaments as we took them out of the boxes, I had the biggest smile on my face seeing her wonder and delight as she saw the ornaments and how they sparkled. Christmas is my favorite Holiday and I hope to pass that onto Arabella. She liked to put the ornaments up high and she did a great job decorating. Arabella and I had so much fun listening to Christmas music and she got to say up way past her bed time to finish decorating the tree. And it came out beautiful!