MERRY CHRISTMAS

We spent Christmas Eve at Meredith, Clyde and Sofia's house. It was lovely, warm, yummy, precious and all the things we wish Christmas with our kids to be . . .

After dinner, Sofia spread some reindeer food in the yard to help Santa's reindeer find their way . . .

The house was so festive . . .

Sofia also set out cookies and milk for Santa and some carrots for his reindeer . . .

Christmas day we all gathered at our house . . .

Elizabeth came by . . .

We opened lots of fun and thoughtful gifts . . .

Read some books . . .

Went on a delivery to a neighbor's house . . .

Barclay and Dylan opened presents too . .

Played some games . . .

Popped crackers and wore silly hats at dinner . . .

Ate too much . . .

And ended a perfect Christmas with a concert of Christmas carols . . .

CHRISTMAS TIME

One day a couple of weeks ago, Sofia had a slight cold and just wanted to cuddle up on the sofa and watch Seasame Street until Mummy came to pick her up. She was with us for dinner, so we had a little pasta salad picnic-style . . .

At Christmas, we put out our Polar Express candy dish with M&M's in it. For obvious reasons, we keep it up on the counter on the days Sofia visits. However, it is still within sight and we do get requests, which we are happy to indulge . . .

Meredith set up her office's Christmas dinner at a lovely Sacramento restaurant and invited us down to have dinner with Sofia while she and Clyde were out. They left us hot, yummy homemade soup and fresh bread. Sofia finished her dinner first, but stayed at the table to keep Papa and me company . . .

After dinner, we all sat down to watch "The Polar Express" together . . .

We love Christmas time.

CHRISTMAS COOKIES !

Apron on, dust the cloth and rolling pin with flour, roll the dough, cut the cookies, decorate, into the oven, set the timer, let them cool, taste test and package them up. The pictures pretty much tell the story, except for one thing. If the process seems a little heavy on the supervision side, it's because the step stool that Sofia was using kept slipping out from under her. It didn't seem to bother her much, but it required that we keep at least one foot against it the whole time. We've since replaced the step stool with a better model, ready for next time.

This was the container going home to Mummy and Daddy. We think a smile would have accompanied this pose, but that was too hard to do with a mouth full of cookie.