finding the reason for the season

 here are wes and the bean at a santa night, their second one of the season. we go every year to century two's night with santa and the same santa does the pictures with the girls the last two years. this year the girls decided to give santa a christmas card.

 when we saw the second santa gillian was upset, she put her little fists on her hips and looked up at me and very seriously said to me 'mommy, that is NOT santa.' she pays attention to detail. in the first picture that IS the real santa, in the second, it is an imposter. 

 oh, well on to bigger things.. the Double Birthday Party!!!

 here haley is trying to get the bean to smile...

 ah it only lasts a moment she keeps sticking her tongue out. i think she is the only child who, when you go to kiss her you have to say 'no tongue gillian.'

 here is the big cake. i thought hey let's get an ice cream cake should be easier than cake and ice cream, yeah right. i left my honey in charge of searching this out, at one point he actually said why can't we just get an ice cream pie. i thought i was going to lose it, i could have made the cake myself if he didn't want to get it... he got it!! yay

 here we are making cookies for santa, at my sisters house. it gets messy...

 here are the girls at the assembly line frosting and decorating the cookies. someone took the lid off the sprinkles at one point and gillian made a mountain of sprinkles on top of the cookies.

 my nephew, he was so serious. later there was a frosting fight, my beaters broke that day and i had to go get a new one to make the pies. my nephew ended up rolling out the dough and putting the last few batches in the oven. the kids had so much fun. i was tired.

 here they decided they were going to paint themselves with frosting, here is haley with her famous rojo frosted lips, in fact every red cookie was done by miss haley, it's her favorite color. the beans is green. my christmas girls have christmas colors as their favorite colors how appropriate.

 here is my nephew trying his skills with my famous, Paula Deen Cookie Mix!!

 i just love the sugar cookie recipe and ever since i found it, it is the only one i use for this type of cookie...

 here are some of the finished products. in all we had over 144 sugar cookies 268 chocolate chip and an equal amount of butterscotch cookies!! we gave santa the 'hook- up'!! can you see haleys red cookies and the one up in the corner there, the one that looks black, that is the beans cookie with a mountain of sprinkles on it!!

so if you ever wonder about the reason for the season, well for me, this is it, the memories that i have creating all this fun with my girls, and the rest of my family. i can't think of a better feeling in the world right now then the journey through the holiday season. i think i am getting excited for next year already.


i am heading to the gym today. for the first time in a week. i have been quite sick this last week and last night wes had a bit of it as well. hopefully we are done with this viral bug and won't have to worry about it any more. i have not heard from his mother since christmas, i hope she is not feeling like a grinch still, but there is nothing i am worried about.i would have been thrilled to see my kids at the holidays and to get such a lavish gift, she seemed unimpressed with us all. what she shows me is how not to treat my children. then it won't be 25 years before i see them in the same room. i have a lot of empathy for her though because she is all alone and she is a mother and a grandmother and it must be aweful to sit alone in that little apartment day in, day out. her phone hardly rings. and she is dependant on people to bring her things like, groceries and medicine. she has alienated her daughter, whom i have never met, and i just think it is sad that there are four adult children who have a mom, alive and well, and they don't want to be around her. i miss my mom terribly. i guess that leaves me with today's thought;
"When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves."- William Arthur Ward