Holiday Fun

Poppop, Ellie, Sophie, and Frosty

Mommom and Ellie, trying to figure out how to watch the Frozen trailer on youtube.  Ellie and Gabe's first movie!  They loved it.

It's not Christmas without the Grinch.

Poppop and Gabe.

Making pizzelles, because you can never have enough holiday cookies.

Zaina and the Littles

Jonah!

Gabe thinks the "noisy dog" is the best thing ever.

My pretty girl

Roar!

Negre Blanc!  

Christina entertaining Ellie with her phone.

Katie and Gabe

Gabe dug Aunt Janis' snow village.

And finally, doing some art, on step stool AND tippytoes, at the neighbors.

Next up, New Years!

Deck the Halls

I soooooo love decorating for the holidays.  It's always depressing to undo it all in January.

Holiday Card

Can you believe I actually pulled this off this year?!?

Selfie

Just me and E, playing with the cell phone camera.

Milkshake Buddies

We had lunch at Horsefeathers yesterday with ours friends that live in Croton.  The girls haven't seen each other in almost a year, but that didn't stop Ellie and Eliza from bonding over a chocolate milkshake.

Purple Blanket

Meet Purple Blanket.  He's always called "Purple Blanket," as if he may get confused with some other scrap of fabric Gabe insists on carrying around with him and cuddling with on the couch.  Purple Blanket was actually given to Ellie by Bri's cousin Les when she was born.  It's even personalized with Ellie's name and date of birth.  But no matter.  Purple Blanket has officially become Gabe's and I think it's going to be around for a while.  Sometimes he just lays on floor and says "mommy, I like purple blanket."  It kills me.

Cookies Galore

I've always loved playing hooky on snow days and making cookies.  And now it's actually an appropriate activity!  This Tuesday the schools were closed so Ellie and I made sugar cookies and then invited the neighbor girls over to help decorate/cover themselves in frosting.  Other than making a serious rookie mistake (next time:  lunch then cookies, not cookies then lunch!) it was great.  And I haven't stopped eating cookies since.

Pirate Ellie measures the flour.

Gabe and Gaby perform quality control.

Pirate Ellie insisted on using a butterfly cookie cutter.  Why not?

Later in the week we made gingerbread boys for Ellie's teachers.    And now we're officially out of cookies.  We better get baking!

Winter!

Wow. Hanukkah was here.  And it was awesome.  And it was also Thanksgiving, so we ate and ate and drank wine with the neighbors and opened presents every night and all was good.  And now it's really winter.

This year's tree.

Sitting on the radiator, waiting for snow.

We did a gingerbread house last year and I've decided it's a must-do-tradition.  My favorite part is figuring out a way to include some of the kids' toys.  This year almost had an underwater Octonauts theme, but then I remembered I'm not that talented.