Christmas Fun

I couldn't believe that Christmas was here and now I can't believe Christmas is over! We had a wonderful Christmas here at home and a wonderful Christmas season with all our family. The kids received more toys than they needed, but are happy with all of them. They've already worn the batteries out of most of them. I guess I'll be buying a super sized pack next time I go to the store! There is so much joy for the kids at Christmas time and it makes the whole event so joyous as we watch the kids open and enjoy all their presents. Here are some Christmas pictures (in no particular order).

Merry Christmas!

It's been a very busy Christmas season. It is almost impossible to believe that tomorrow is Christmas Day! The kids are more than ready for it and have been all but bouncing off the walls. I on the other hand am trying to get some last minute things done. Last night I stayed up wrapping presents and Rod put a few things together.

Today I have been doing some last minute baking for Christmas desserts. We are having my brother and his family over and my Dad is supposed to come down. I made a couple of cheese cakes and a Birthday Cake for Jesus! I decided last year that I would make a birthday cake for Christmas. I got this really neat paper about how to do it from church.

We made the cake round for Jesus' love goes 'round and 'round and never ends.

We made it chocolate like the darkness of our sins and covered it with white frosting, like Jesus covers our sins and makes them white as snow.

We topped it with a yellow star and an angel, for they were the first ones to let people know about Jesus' birth.

We put 12 candles on it for the 12 months of the year that Jesus is our light.

We encircle it with evergreens (or a green shell border) to be symbol of everlasting life.

We added red marshmallow stars to represent the blood that Jesus willingly shed for us. (They were supposed to be red cinnamon candies that I forgot to buy. Leah had these from school and was very willing to put them on the cake!)

We will sing happy birthday to Jesus tomorrow! The kids are so excited about the cake and have been talking about Jesus' birthday all morning. It really helps keep the focus where it needs to be! It's a great new tradition for us.

Merry Christmas from the Windles!

Leah and Caleb helped by putting on the Candles! They love the birthday cake!

Candy, Cookies and Craziness

Tis the season for Christmas baking! Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy baking and making holiday treats and that's part of the reason that I do so much of it this time of year. However, I usually bite off more than I can chew when it comes to it and I never can factor all the issues that the kids have while I am trying to get it all done! All the baking and candy making that I am going to do is now done!


I decided that part of my gift to Caleb's 13 teachers, Leah's 2 teachers and 2 bus drivers and several other of my friends would be chocolate treats. This meant lots of candy making that I normally don't do. I spent a couple of days last week making 3 batches of buckeyes, chocolate truffles, a whole bag worth of white and chocolate covered pretzels, fudge and a double of recipe of peppermint chocolate bark. The kids help some with this, but mostly their job was taste testing!


This week, I made cookies. I didn't make quite as many cookies as I have other years, but still enough to keep me busy for a couple of days. I made a double batch of sugar cookies, a double batch of peanut butter kiss cookies and a batch of Russian Tea cakes. The kids were able to help more with the cookies. They really loved making cut out cookies, Alissa tried to join in too. However, after the first couple of pans, they were done and off playing. This was nice and allowed me to finish the rest. Later they returned to help me, I was almost done with the cut-outs, but thought of another thing that they could do. I decided to have them take all the wrappers off of the chocolate kisses! This was a great project for them and their reward was getting to eat one. However, when I had my back turned Alissa had climbed up on the chair with them and decided to shove them in her mouth as fast as they could unwrap! When I caught her, she was less than happy about having to get down away from the candy!

Cookie making fun!

The kids did a good job!!

The cookies that they kids made are done and Alissa is ready to dig in!


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Paper unwrapping fun. Alissa climbed back up to see if she could get some more when I wasn't looking!

Caleb unwrapping candy. I first assigned Leah to the candy unwrapping because Caleb was off playing. He came to see what was going on and Leah assigned him the job of throwing away the papers. He happily did that for awhile, but soon Leah couldn't keep up so I had him help unwrap too!

The kids decided that they would make a face as they were unwrapping the candies!

The next day, the kids and I did ice the cookies. I did most of them, but I did save out several for them. It was so cute. Leah was an icing machine and had a lot of fun with it. Caleb was Mr. Perfectionist and wanted every last speck of the cookie covered and got mad that it wasn't going just the way he wanted. Alissa just wanted to eat the icing. When I helped her put some on the cookie she just ate it off the spreader, then off the cookie and then handed me back the spreader for some more please!

Leah had a lot of fun icing!

Caleb is putting a lot of concentration and frustration into cookie icing!

Time to eat the icing! Thanks mom!

Alissa did try to ice the cookie even if she did lick it off as soon as she put it on!

Yes, in the 45 minutes that the kids iced cookies, Caleb did two!

Finally time to eat some cookies!

Caleb eating one of his masterpieces!

Christmas Ornaments

As with our Holiday traditions, we let the kids each pick an ornament each year for the tree. I must admit that I really enjoy this tradition although I am not sure that Rod would say the same. There is something about most men and shopping that just don't always go together, but he is still very willing to make the trip to the store for the kids. This Saturday we made our annual outing to the store. On the way, I asked them each what kind of ornament that they were going to pick. Surprise! Leah said that she wanted a princess and Caleb said he wanted a tractor. If they kids keep with these trends much longer, I am going to have a tree covered with princesses and JD tractors! When we got to the store, Leah picked a Barbie ornament and Caleb picked a tractor. We gave Alissa several to hold and she had a good time checking them all out. All of the others she was willing to easily give back except the one that we bought for her! It was nice that she was able to pick out her own this year.

Each of the kids pose with their ornament!

The kids each get to put their own ornament of the tree!

Each ornament up close on the tree!