Still in a Freeze

Joe and I went into Wal-Mart for eggs and fruit and ended up coming out with a full cart. I did all my shopping on the grocery side. It is amazing how little food is left around our house since we have been out of school since Thursday. I was feeling pretty good as my gift shopping and wrapping were finished, and we were just picking up enough to tide us over until the Christmas leftovers were done.

The boys and I also baked over 9 pounds of cookies for family and neighbors, and a few dozen for here. The dough was made and I just set myself to baking one batch after another. I tried a new recipe for chocolate covered pretzels, but I didn't like it at all. The recipe was much like my no bake cookie recipe, but instead of adding quick oats I dipped the pretzels into the mixture, and there was no peanut butter. The pretzels got soggy and the chocolate was dry. Raymond liked them.

For tonight's countdown surprise the boys opened the book Here Comes Santa Claus. There is only one cookie left on the boys cookie ribbons when they went to bed tonight.

Here is Daniel reading to one of his new friends.

Gingerbread and Sugar Cookies

The weather report--it is 6 degrees below zero F, but the sky is clear and the sun is shining brightly.

Despite the threat of snow and ice later today, the little boys and I ventured out to visit Grammy's house. The mission: Raymond and Daniel were making cookies with their grandma and visiting with their cousin Kevin. My sister enlisted me to another journey, out to shop for some gifts she still needed to purchase. So after the first gingerbread boys went into the oven and other gingerbread people were being cut out, we set out to find those last items on my sister's list. It was a good thing that we enjoyed the trip, because otherwise it was a bust as she didn't find either of the items she was searching for and we had to get back to the kids before mom left for an afternoon meeting. We picked up pizza for lunch and visited while the boys played for a couple of more hours.

The boys and I made it home before dark with a box full of our gingerbread family and an assortment of sugar cookies.

The countdown surprise tonight is the story Santa's Toy Shop. We are looking forward to Santa's visit.