"...And To All A Good Night"

I grew up celebrating Christmas on Christmas Eve, and that's still what we do, so Friday was our big day. Started out by making the big Christmas dinner (which we ate at lunchtime because it just worked out better). I let the girls have real champagne glasses for their sparkling cider and they thought that was pretty cool. After lunch, Sedona took a nap while Sierra made her cookies for Santa. I let each girl make her own batch of cookies and she got to pick what she wanted to make. Sierra insisted on making mint chocolate chocolate chip and she did just about all of it herself. cracking eggslearning a little about fractions while searching for the right measuring cupMelting and mixing in chocolate for the first time

When Sedona woke up, it was her turn to make cookies. She picked pumpkin cookies. I didn't get as many pictures of her because she needed a little more help. I was pretty proud of her--at the end, everything was mixed up and she looked in the bowl, then picked up a bag of chocolate chips and said, "it needs some of this in there. He likes chocolate". I told her never be afraid to change a recipe and we dumped a healthy handful in.Cracking an egg all by herself. Didn't even get any shells in there!Adding the flour

Once cookies were made, it was time for presents. It should've been dinner time, but we completely forgot to feed our children (and no, I'm not joking), yay us!
Plotting their attack
Sedona opened this present and inside, it was wrapped in construction paper that was taped together. She got all excited and yelled, "Tape!!! I got tape!!!!"
Princess Sierra
Secora couldn't wait to open her presents
No, really, she was totally enthralled
Sedona finally got a pillow pet of her own
Sierra was very excited about getting Despicable Me
Sedona opening a new baby doll
Sedona working hard on her new computer
Walking around with her favorite new toys

Leaving milk and cookies for Santa

No pictures of them getting their stockings because I haven't uploaded them yet. We had cinnamon rolls for breakfast and spent the day playing with new toys, watching movies and eating leftovers!

Now it's time to get ready for another week! Long Christmas breaks might be the only thing I miss about grad school!!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas.....from "sugar and spice"

We had a great day here yesterday, I'll get a post up in a day or two!

The Best Christmas Gift

Santa got a little confused and dropped off my Christmas present 6 weeks ago. Still fits in a stocking though ;-)
We always celebrate on Christmas Eve, so we're gearing up for a big day around here tomorrow!

Lunar Eclipse

On Monday night, we had clear skies and a good view of the lunar eclipse. It was also 11 degrees though, so I wasn't interested in staying outside to watch. I picked a spot on the sidewalk and every 15 minutes, I ran out, stood in the same place and took a picture. Apparently my photography skills (and/or equipment) leave a lot to be desired because you can't really see the red that showed up in the shadows, but at least you get an idea.

Here are the last two pictures edited to show what you could really see in the shadow:

It just so happened that Sierra was finishing up a unit on the Earth and moon this week. She had learned that we have day and night because the Earth rotates and that the moon travels around the Earth and we see the different phases of the moon because of the shadows. Since it was so cold and required staying up a relatively long time to see the different parts of the eclipse, I decided (at the last minute) not to wake her up for it. Instead, we looked at the pictures and got out the globe the next day and pretended she was the sun and I moved the globe and pretended my fist was the moon to review the information and demonstrate why the lunar eclipse happened. Then, yes, she did a few of those evil worksheets to be sure the information "stuck".