Ok, so I thought it would be fun to make a gingerbread house with Emma this year. Keep in mind that she is not quite 3 and not much help. I think in the future I will be waiting until she can be of more assistance. My hand hurt so bad by the end. I think I made my icing too hard, which was good for sticking things, but horrible for my hands. It was the first one I'd ever done, so I am hoping for better results in the future.

However, Emma loved it and keeps showing everyone that comes over 'her house'.

Getting started:


The goodies:





Finished product:








Finished product with Emma (you can tell by her face what she was helping with) =)


All in all it was an exhausting 2 1/2 hours, but well spent. It's a cute little house and I had a great time with my little muncher.

This year we had our 2nd annual Cookie Day. A friend and I get together and bake for hours upon hours and make containers of cookies to give away to people at our church. This year we baked for approximately 15 hours total. Lots of yummy cookies were made as well as some fond memories. My friend's sister calls us the Julie Rae Show. I look forward to many more years of Cookie Days.

Here are some picture highlights from our day:







My little helper rolling the Snickerdoodles:

And finally, the finished product:



I hope you've been inspired to make some cookies. They're such a fun, easy gift to give to friends and I haven't met someone who doesn't like Christmas cookies, so they're sure to be a hit!

I can't believe the holidays have been here and gone already. I'm just now finding the time to sit down and share some of our Christmas traditions and decorations with you, so bear with me.

First, here is a little tour of my Christmas decorations:

Starting with the star of the season ~ our tree: (not the best picture of it, but I love it anyway)



The next best part ~ the mantle:



Some of my snowmen friends for you all to meet:





(I love this one, but it came out a little blurry, so I changed it to b&w)



This is one of my new guys this year:


Our new family ornament this year:



Emma's new ornament this year (I painted it for her):



I hope you enjoyed the little tour of my Christmas decorations. On to posts about cookies and gingerbread houses and such. See you soon!