Frosting Cookies with Mimi and Grandpa

It is no secret that I do not like frosting Christmas cookies. Mike gets so mad at me, but by the time I make the dough, roll, cut, and bake the cookies I am over it. This means that frosting always falls to Mike. This year he had the honor of having Mimi and Grandpa here to help him and the boys with this chore. Of course the boys love frosting cookies

Mimi and Grandpa were a huge help. This took about half the time it normally does

Ty was the king of sprinkles!

It was so fun to have Mimi and Grandpa here to help!

When it was all said and done we had GREAT cookies.

Mike and the boys have a tradition of decoraing a gingerbread house at the holidays. I had a Christmas party this night so they were on their own. We buy the pre-built house to cut down on the frustration of having to actually build the house.

Waiting their turn to frost

Frosting the roof

Candy time

Notice all the frosting on Brooks' mouth :)

Time to decorate

Such concentration

Finished product!

Brooks' Kindergarten Program

Brooks had his first program at the big school! It was really crowded and we were not early enough to get a very good seat. Luckily Mike had gone on ahead and got a pretty good spot to stand. This is the first number they did and it was all the K-4 kids. I challenge you to try to find Brooks! They put the little kids down front on the floor. He is about the center of the picture in the navy and white sweater.

I felt like we were pretty close, but the pictures were horrible. Here is when it was just the Kindergartner's turn. Brooks is again on the floor, which made it hard to see him, I don't know why they put them on the floor when they had risers.

Brooks did great! He was so excited for his program. When he found us in the crowd

he would wave and blow kisses--what a ham! I finally got a picture in the hallway so you could see that Brooks was there.

Eating his candy from Santa

This would have been a really great shot if Ty had kept looking :)

It was -7 as we left school after the program--BURRRRR!

He Did It!

Ty got on stage and sang at his Christmas program! He had talked about doing it, said he was going to, but when the time came he was really nervous and anxious. Really not even when the time came, when the day came--he would start crying and get upset when it was the day. Here he is where they lined up, you can see the apprehension in his face.

Brooks went over to hold his hand and help him. We also came up with the fact that he could take his puppy with him to hold.Here he made it to the stage, still nervous, but up there.Once they got going he did fine. Mike thought he looked on the verge of tears the whole time, but I thought he relaxed a bit. He did all the motions and all the parts, but didn't sing very loud :) we were just glad he did it!

We made a huge deal out of it and then took him out for pizza afterwards!

Good Job Ty!

Our Tree

It is tree time! The boys were so excited to get our tree.We had lots of help.

I don't know what Ty was doing--why he had such a funny smile. He looks like a crazy person.

I wish this wasn't blurry, I think it is so cute of Cooper.

Brooks still loves trains! This is a Thomas holiday train we bought on sale last year after Christmas, it was really fun to have it as a surprise this year. It was a good thing we still had some Thomas track because what it came with was not quite enough.

lights--we are making progress

ahhhhhh, finished product

***************OUTAKES*********************

more crazy person

Just Like Rockefeller Center......Not Reallly

Saturday night was Crested Butte's annual light the night, night. There is a small, short parade to the big tree and then Santa light's the tree. This year Santa brought one of his reindeer to the parade. This was the first time for the reindeer and it was a huge hit! The reindeer making his way up Elk ave.

Brooks getting a lift to see the reindeer above the crowd.

Boosting Ty for a better view. I held Ty most of the time, he gets nervous in crowds--plus it is hard when you are so close to the ground in a group of adults.

It was really cold. I thought for sure in the single digits--but really it was about 11 degrees.

You can see Daddy enjoying this less and less with each boy. Cooper was having fun. Once Santa makes it to the tree he lights it up to start the season. After! Our beautiful tree is now lit for the rest of the year. One of my friends remarked it was just like the lighting in Rockefeller Center. Really it was a lot of standing in the cold for Santa to flip the switch. Brooks being silly