A Picture from School

Every year, Katie's preschool sends families a picture taken at school. It's always fun to see how they turn out!

It was fun to sit with the bear!

Cooking and Cleaning

After enjoying Pajama Day at school, Katie decided to come home and do some cooking and cleaning before getting dressed.

Cooking can be a messy job! 

I stopped to do some laundry before cleaning up my kitchen!

Gingerbread Cookies

This year, I ordered Katie a new Christmas book that she absolutely loved called The Gingerbread Pirates. In the book, a mom and her son make some very cute gingerbread cookies decorated like pirates, and they become live pirates when everyone goes to bed. After hearing the book over and over, Katie decided that we needed to make gingerbread men instead of sugar cookies for Christmas.

The first thing I did was to let Katie know that we could make gingerbread cookies, but my decorating skills weren't up to those in the story. She was fine with that and was ready to go!

The dough was easy to make. The hard part for Katie was the wait since the dough had to be refrigerated overnight before we could make cookies. When it was finally time to make the cookies, we realized that we had lost our full size gingerbread man cookie cutter. Katie just chose from the remaining cookie cutters. We ended up making small gingerbread men, gingerbread women, sleds, stockings, and bones (in honor of our dogs). Then we both worked on decorating. It was all very exciting for Katie!

I love to whisk the dry ingredients! It's better when we can find our whisk, but a fork will do. 

Who doesn't love a little baking? 

Before we put the dough in the refrigerator, my mom let me try a little bit of it even though she's not supposed to do that. 

I was so happy when it was finally time to cut out our cookies! 

After baking the cookies, it was time to decorate. I chose to decorate a bone first! 

I was pretty excited because my mom found some princess decorating gel with sparkles in it! 

By the time I got to the tree, I discovered that more gel must mean a better cookie! 

What do you think? 

I really wanted to eat a cookie, but my mom had to take a picture first. 

I thought our cookies looked great! 

Even though I liked decorating the cookies, I wanted a plain cookie when it came time to try them. 

Yummy!

The Pirate Fairy

Katie was so proud of herself when she put together her latest, fashionable outfit. She happily announced that she had found the perfect clothes to become a pirate fairy. She found: a Tinkerbell shirt, a Little Mermaid skirt, polka dot black leggings, purple striped socks, and of course, a pair of wings. To top of the whole ensemble, she added her dangly Shrinky Dink jewelry. Beautiful.

My outfit made me feel happy all day long!

Christmas Mail

Katie was very happy to get the mail a couple of days before Christmas. She found a card from my friends, Noreen and Joe, and she found her Christmas gift from my brother and his family. It was an exciting time of year!

Thanks for the card, Grammy Noreen and Grandpa Joe!

I was so glad Uncle Jeff said I could open my gift early! I'm cooking until Christmas. Thank you Uncle Jeff, Aunt Grace, and Ian!

Looking Back

As we enter into a new year, it's nice to look back over the past year to think of all that you experienced.

In January, I tried rollerskating for the first time! 

In February, I got to meet Uncle Jeff, Aunt Grace, and Ian in Disney World! 

In March, I had pictures taken with a real, live bunny! 

In April, I got to go to the tulip festival! 

In May, I got my very own puppy! 

In June, I performed in my first dance recital! 

In July, my cousin, Kelton, came to visit! 

In August, I walked around this lake all by myself for the first time.  

In September, Ian visited me! 

In October, I found the perfect pumpkin! 

In November, I saw the Christmas lights at the zoo for the first time! 

In December, I received my first letter from a president!

I hope next year is just as happy!

Happy New Year!

Just like in the last few years, we had a pretty low key New's Year Eve. We ended up watching the New York City celebration on TV and celebrated with the east coasters as the year turned to 2016. This was the first year that Katie got excited to countdown with the clock and understood that you say, "Happy New Year!" when you get to zero.

Katie made two resolutions for the upcoming year. 

One, "I want to go outside with Ian (her cousin) and Bailey (her dog) and watch a rainbow and pet Bailey with Ian." 

Two, "I want to get better at making Olaf snowmen out of Play-Doh. When I make them, the nose sometimes comes off!"