the day...............................................

We had the best Christmas.
Very restful & full of peaceful, quiet time as a family.
(Well, as quiet as it can be with two boys and noisy toys. lol)
I think Brett and Favre agree.
They had a great time this year unwrapping their gifts and playing with all the new toys.
The newest addition to our family was their favorite.

Kitty..........we haven't given him a proper name yet.

I think "Mr. Jingles" is a great name but it's still undecided.

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas day yourself!



Merry Christmas

From our family to your's..........Merry Christmas!

Gingerbread Houses (3 year old style)

The Christmas season of 2011 marks the beginning of a new tradition at the Kinsaul house.
Gingerbread houses.
Okay, they're really graham cracker houses but calling them gingerbread sounds more festive.
The four of us spent some time together yesterday afternoon decorating the houses.
The hubs and I mostly supervised the boys but it was so relaxing and enjoyable. I think David was surprised at how much fun it actually was.

To keep the stress of the houses falling apart while decorating at bay, I hot glued the graham crackers together before hand. This worked really well and as much as I'd like to take credit for the idea, I actually saw Ashley over at Under the Sycamore blog about it.(check out the rest of her blog, good stuff) Such a neat way to put them together and keeps tears from little ones away, who might otherwise be upset about their house falling down.
My boys had a great time spreading frosting and playing with the candy, plus, this was a good sensory activity for them.

F's house - he did some demolition work immediately. lol

B's house - : )

The perfect centerpiece for our table.

Hope you're all having the best week before Christmas!

Can you believe it's almost here?!!

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I almost forgot. This is my 100th blog post. Wow!

I wish I had a giveaway or something else fun to celebrate.

I'll have one for the 125th blog post instead. :o)

Thanks for reading!

Cookie Exchange Party

Saturday night a few amazing moms brought some really scrumptious treats over to trade.
Everyone brought enough cookies to give away 6 to each guest and some for sampling at the party.
I loved seeing every one's packaged goodies.
We had a contest for most creative packaging.
One winner.
Super cute little jars of Santa Hat Party Mix.
Yum!
With all the sweet stuff we were in need of something savory. I was running way behind and didn't have all the appetizers ready before but with the help of a couple friends we were able to get it put together. I love having people in my kitchen, chatting, laughing, cooking, tasting.

Festive prizes for the games. One was Christmas trivia. Fun.

All the packaged cookies together.

The appetizers - mini caprese bites, potato bites, and creamy pumpkin soup.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Butter Cookies (similar to sugar cookies but much softer)

You can't see it here but she put snowflake window decals on the tops of the plastic lids.

So creative!

Hello Dolly Cookies

Time ran out for getting these recipe cards decorated like the others. Sorry Leanne. :o(

Santa Hat Party Mix

Aren't these jars super cute. I just love them.

 She won the prize for the most creative packaging.

Graham Cracker Nut Bars

Candy Cane Cookies

These were mine.

I love making these every year.

 I think they're my favorite holiday cookie to bake.

So festive!

We did have one other type of cookie, Orange No-Bake Cookies,

 but they needed to be refrigerated and never were photographed.

Such a fun night.

Hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did.

Have you ever hosted a Cookie Exchange Party?

What did you do different?

Or have you attended one that was different from this one?

I'd love to hear from YOU.

I think this is going to become an annual thing for me.

LOVE hosting!

Holiday Merriment

Hello.
I'm back.
Sorry I took such a long break from blogging.
But I'm back now.
I have some fun posts coming up this week.
Like cookie exchange party
Christmas crafting
Gingerbread houses for three year old's
It.
Is.
Going.
To.
Be.
Fun.
So stay tuned.

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We made our annual trip to Bass Pro to see Santa Thursday night after dinner.
The line was LONG!
Since neither one of the boys were really excited to go up and talk to him we opted for looking at him from a distance.
This year they loved writing their letters to Santa.  (precious scribbles)
Their faces showed Christmas magic as they watched the train go around the tracks.
We also rode the Merry-go-round, this was a new activity at our Bass Pro.
Favre was very intent on holding the pole the first half of the ride then I had to remind him to continue so he wouldn't fall off. I wish I'd been able to get some pictures of them riding, I just need one more hand. Ha ha.

A trip to Bass Pro isn't complete without riding the elevator and watching the fish. :o)

-Emily