Christmas cookies

What Christmas season would be complete without a Christmas cookie Family Night?

Scarlett insisted on a butterfly cookie cutter.  Very festive!

Lining up the cookie cutter to get the most of the dough.

Push hard!

She didn't think we could see her sneaking little bites here and there.

Let's do some gingerbread men.

Nate was very good and didn't need any help.  I forget he's growing up so fast and can do a lot on his own.

He's wasn't quite strong enough to roll the dough out himself.  He still needed me for something!

Mmmm, see-food!

I couldn't help myself from flouring the kids.  If they could spread it around and make messes so could I!

Nate was surprised I would flour him because I'm usually so strict about not making messes.  I'd already lost the battle at this point with flour everywhere so since I couldn't beat them, I joined them.

 Scarlett got so excited when she found a piece of dough left on the table that when she jumped to get it, the bench she pushed off of moved out from underneath her.

This is what happened when she realized the bench was gone.  Cruel of us to stop and take a picture, but it was really funny!  I wonder if she thought the dough was still worth it?

PB balls

Thanks to a great friend's food blog (Thanks, Mel!) we have discovered a new favorite snack at our house...Peanut butter balls!  They are healthy, tasty and so good right out of the freezer.  One night the kids helped me form the balls.

 Shaping and rolling the balls.  It was so cute to watch Scarlett watch Nate do it first and then try so hard to do it herself.  Her balls weren't quite round but they had a huge amount of charm.

 They loved to dip their hands in the water so the mixture wouldn't stick to their hands as they rolled.  Some of the balls have a little layer of ice around them when you get them out of the freezer.  It just makes me smile.

The best part of helping mommy cook... eating the small leftovers in the bowl!  Yum!

I liked this scripture

Before I get into the scripture I just want to say that I don't usually post scriptures on my blog.  To be honest I'm not a huge scripture reader, but I'm trying to change that.  I came across this when I was reading the other morning and it really struck me.  I felt like it spoke to me. 

Phillippians 2:1-5
1. If there be therefore, any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies,
2. Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.
3. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.
4. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
5. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

Verse 3 was especially poignant to me.  I want to be better at esteeming those around me better than myself.

My 30th Birthday

I turned 30 this year!  I wasn't too stressed out about it and I think I handled it well.  I do feel like I'm getting older because I'm little slower than I used to be, a little more tired than I used to be and I can't just jump out of bed after a huge workout the night before and not feel it.  Other than those things, though, I really am enjoying "growing up".  I like who I am, I am completely aware of my flaw and try to work on them all the time, but I think I'm a pretty good person otherwise.  I'm also happy and I think that's one of the most important things in life.

My birthday landed on a weekend this year and Robert was really sweet and arranged a birthday surprise for me.  He knows me so well and couldn't have nailed it more on the head.  We have a babysitting swap group set up on Saturdays so two weekends a month we get babysitters and another weekend we do the babysitting.  I can't tell you how wonderful I think it is.  We also play volleyball on Fridays with a great group of friends from church. Volleyball had some scheduling conflicts that weekend so we rescheduled to play on the same night as the babysitting swap.  Robert convinced me to go to volleyball without the kids, which is a huge treat because they usually come and we have to keep an eye on them while we play. So we got ready to go play volleyball, dropped the kids at the sitter's and headed over to the church for some good play.  When we drove into the parking lot I noticed a lot of families that don't usually come and got very excited.  I love it when new people come the play and I thought I'd finally convinced some of my friends to come and play!  When I walked into the gym one of the women came up to me and Robert and said, "Weren't we going to yell 'Surprise!'"  I still didn't get what was going on!  I'm a space cadet a lot of the time.  It finally dawned on me that Robert had set the entire thing up for me as a birthday party.  To be honest, I'd totally forgotten it was even my birthday!  They all sang "Happy Birthday" and the cupcakes were brought out.  It was so nice to see all my friends there and it honestly made me feel so grateful to have so many great people in my life.  The fact that people made an effort to be there for me made me feel really special.  I'm very blessed.  Anyway, after the treats the volleyball began.  It was so fun.  I loved every minute.  I'm so touched Robert put all that effort into one night for me. 

Of course we did our own little party with cheesecake the next night after the kids went to bed.

 I love cheesecake.  Robert made it for me all by himself.  Can you guess which side is mine?  I feel like I was very generous giving Robert an entire half of my cake to defile with his toffee pieces.   :)

It was delicious and I had such a stomachache after!  Just for clarification, we did not eat all of it that night, but I ate more than Robert!   We did finish it the next night.

This is how the Rosses do a Christmas Tree

We were heading to Arizona for Christmas this year and I was feeling a little overwhelmed thinking about putting up the Christmas tree and all our decorations when we weren't going to be here to enjoy them. Anyone who knows me really well knows that I'm not a huge fan a scrapbooking and crafting. I have nothing against these activities and really admire those who at excel at them, I just don't really find the same enjoyment out of them. I'd rather be cooking! Anyway, I have tried to participate in scrapbooking and crafting over the years and have accumulated a collection of paper, stickers, and other do-dads. I rarely use them so they sit in a closet and gather dust. Well, I thought I'd put all the green papers I had together and cut out a giant Christmas tree and tape it to the wall and then let the kids color and draw on it for decoration. It was fast, didn't have to be perfect, the kids would LOVE decorating it and we'd still have a little Christmas spirit in the house without having to drag out all the decorations. I thought I was pretty clever and when I talked to my friends many of them mentioned they'd seen stuff like that online. I still thought it was a fun idea and a great solution to my laziness. I cut and hung the tree one night after the kids went to bed and the next night we decorated it for Family Night.  The kids loved it!  I got a huge kick out of watching them work on their Christmas tree.

Scarlett made it a project everyday.  She'd add layer upon layer of marker to the spots she could reach.  She and Nate had so much fun that I'm thinking of doing this every year.  That way I can be my obsessive compulsive self and have a beautiful tree and the kids can have fun with their own tree.  Everybody wins!

Nate was super creative.  We had Texas shaped ornaments, "I love Jesus" ornaments and ornaments of every shape and size.  Can you see the Spiderman ornament?  I was my favorite.

I love this picture of them working together to decorate the tree.  I couldn't have been more pleased with the success of our first paper Christmas tree!