Sugar Cookies and a Christmas Tree

Last week we had our good friends over to make sugar cookies, to try to get into the holiday spirit a little bit.
Avery, Hayden and Zoe were great helpers. We got the cookies made. Then it was time to decorate. They had been playing dress up while the cookies baked. Hayden wasn't ready to be done being a princess, obviously.

There was some snacking going on, of course. A couple knifes were licked and almost double dipped in the frosting, but I was watching and anticipating that so I caught them before it actually happened!

Cole was playing while the cookies were being made. As soon as they were done, he came running. He sat in the kids' favorite kitchen spot and gobbled up a few of the finished product.

Here we are with our nicely decorated cookies.

Zoe's cookies ended up frosting side down on the floor as soon as I snapped this picture. Can you see them sliding, inching their way off the plate?

The next night, we headed to trusty Home Depot and picked up our tree. Hayden loved all of the decorations. She would pull something out of the box and say "Oh WOW, look at this." Over and over.

Cole's favorite parts were the mistletoe headband and the Nutcracker, which has a broken piece by now.

The tree was up, so the next thing to do is take our annual family picture by the tree.

We had to snap a couple of our adorable kids, too!

This picture is the Christmas card winner, after many many many retakes :) We actually took some before Ryan went to work, but none of those turned out. So, I made everyone change shirts, and then we tried again after dinner. Every year, the Christmas card picture causes so much stress and we end up so ornery and ready to just be done with the whole picture taking thing. We ended up with a decent picture, at least.