Emma's First Gingerbread House

 I picked up a Gingerbread House kit this year to do with Emma.  After dinner last night I pulled it out to make.  Much to my suprise, I discovered that you needed to let it sit for 12 hours after construction before decorating.  So, I built the house, and first thing this morning, Emma insisted that we decorate.

 Emma has newly discovered doing projects with Mommy, and loves it.  I did all the frosting, and Emma took her time decorating.  Of course, she had to sample some of the decorations along the way.

 I was very impressed with her focus and precision in decorating.  She did a great job for her first time.  Now to limit her eating of it so she doesn't get sick!

 This past weekend we traveled to Otis to visit with Emma's Birth Family.  We love their house in Otis and enjoy visiting there.  It was cold, but dry so Emma was able to play outside with Kristen and her Uncle KJ.  They had a great time bouncing, swinging and chasing the dogs.

 Emma received many gifts from her Grandma Kim, Grandpa Karl and Great Grandma Linda.  She loved the Hippo tent that they gave her, and crawled in it right away.  This is something she will use lots at home, when we let it out. Even the cat enjoyed the Hippo

2011 Christmas Tree

 One of my favorite things each year is to get our Christmas Tree and bring it home to decorate.  This year, we got our tree, but waited to decorate it.  It was just suppose to be the next day, but ended up being a few days that we had a bare Christmas Tree in our family room waiting for lights and decorations.

 Emma was so excited this year.  It was the first year that she could really help us decorate.  We got out all the stuff, and started putting lights on the tree.  I had purchased some new lights this year as our broke last year.  As I started putting them on, we realized that we did not have enough lights, so Glenn went hunting.  You would think you could find what you want in early December, but most of the colored lights seem to be sold out. Lucky for us, Glenn found our lights and bought several more boxes.

I also tried some ribbon on the tree this year along with our bead garland.  it was really wide, and metallic, so really had a good shimmer against the lights. I was really happy with the overall effect.

Emma loved exploring the Disney Ornaments Glenn and I have collected over the years.  I decorated the top half of the tree, while Emma did the bottom half.  We had purchased her ornament this year, the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Balloon with Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Donald.  She was so excited to hang her ornament.

We thought our tree was beautiful, and plan to enjoy it throughout the season.  Merry Christmas!