Christmas Party

Last night we went to Matt, Tia, Olivia, and Eva's house for our traditional, annual do-something-together-for-Christmas get-together. We have been trying to come up with some sort of a tradition to do together every year, and I think we've finally found the perfect one - dinner and Christmas cookies! We had a really great time.

First, of course, there were presents! We gave the girls their leggings (someone opened them before Olivia woke up, so I did some last minute re-wrapping). They were a hit, and Olivia put them on right away (they fit!)


Tia made the boys these really cute pillow cases:



And she made this super cozy blanket for me, uh, I mean the boys...

For dinner Matt made delicious burgers, and we had salad to go with it. Darius came up with some, um, interesting ways of eating his. For the record, that is a screwdriver, not a knife (which is way better, and safer).


After dinner, it was playtime! There was a lot of running around, giggling, tickling:

And babies:

At some point the grownups just couldn't wait any more - we wanted cookies! It was too late (and we were too impatient) to chill the dough so that we could cut out shapes. We decided to just make balls and decorate with sprinkles and frosting. The kids were all excited to help out with the dough making. I felt a little like Martha Stewart leading the group. There was a lot of measuring:

And mixing:

And more measuring:

And even more mixing:


And baby kissing:

And finally it was time for sprinkles! Olivia, I learned, is a very serious cookie decorator. She concentrates very hard, and does some amazing work.

And Taye likes to sample his work before its done, you know, to make sure its not poisoned for the rest of us.

We also learned that the red sugar sprinkles come out the fastest.


Once the decorating was complete, they were ready for the oven:

While they cooked, Taye and Olivia helped us clean the sprinkle mess off the table.


Then there was nothing left to do but wait for them to be done cooking. We waited...


and waited...

(for the record, he was actually knocking on the oven door at this point, but that doesn't really come through in pictures)

and waited...
Finally, after 10 long minutes they were done! We let them cool off, then frosted them.


And after all that hard work, we were able to enjoy the delicious cookies!


I think it was definitely a tradition in the making. Everyone had such a great time, and there were yummy cookies - what more could we ask for? We stayed for a little while longer, and finally decided it was time to head home. I can't wait for next year!