Cookies, Waffles, Fairies, and other December Things

For a Christmas gift, Lee sent the three Landis women to the musical Annie at the Fulton Theater in Lancaster. Both girls (and the mommy) know almost all the words to all the songs. I cried through the whole show.

We baked some cookies to share with friends. I don't love cooking (a lot of work for a little reward), but my kids do. Emma and Alex impressed me this year with their ability to roll out the dough and use cookie cutters. I almost didn't have to do any work (hahahahahahahaha - okay, I did a lot of the work).

Esther had an early "party" for her birthday this year (party in our house means one friend and Grandma and Grandpa eat dinner with us and the friend gets to stay all night) because her best friend was going to be in South Africa on Esther's actual birthday.

We painted pottery on Esther's real birthday.

Emma chose a fairy; Esther chose a penguin bank; and Alex (though never having viewed an actual football game) chose a football helmet bank. He keeps calling it his baseball helmet. Poor child needs to be exposed to some sports.

You paint the pottery in the studio and leave it there for them to fire in the kiln. We picked up our finished pieces a week later. I'll show them in another post.

Every Christmas Eve, we eat at Waffle House. Here's our annual picture.

Wow! Socks!

Wow! Socks!

Click on the link above to see a funny video of Emma on Christmas Eve.

Igloo

Lee and the kids constructed this igloo over the weekend.

Snow for Sale

Alex handcrafted some very lovely, yet fragile, snowflakes out of tissues (I neglected to get a photo). He set up shop out in the street to sell them for ten cents each. He had his first customer within minutes and ended up making over a dollar. He started out like he is in this picture, with no coat. Real snow fell while he was out so had to don a coat. The snow was so wet that eventually he had to replace his soaked coat for a dry one. By the end of the venture, all his snowflakes had turned into tissue pulp and he was nearly frozen. The things we do for money!

Flahsback Friday, Let it Snow

Lee and the kids (Emma wasn't even born yet!) made this snow fort in our backyard a few years ago. We all have fond memories of this day. I think Alex only remembers it because of seeing pictures. And the shot above is my all-time favorite picture of Esther, which is why I've shared it here twice!!