The Holidays part 1: gearing up.

We did a few things to get in the holiday spirit around here!  First off, we went to the Optimist Football lot by our house and got a tree.  There was just too much snow in the mountains to go cut one down this year in our usual spot!  Clara loved helping pick the tree out, but the temps were close to ZERO that day, so we chose quickly and got the heck outta there!

Here's the little girl at the tree lot.

Another thing we always do is have mother/daughter brunch with my girlfriends Jessica, Teri, and Katie and their moms/sisters/kids.  Sadly, my mom and sister couldn't make it that day.  So it was just Clara and I representin'.  Here we are in our glory (hehehe - it's a fab picture, right?).

And here we are with Jess and Elliott.

Another thing we did to prep for Christmas was bake cookies.  I didn't bake as many kinds this year.  I just couldn't find the time.  Finishing up handmade gifts consumed most of my weekends before Christmas this year.  But we made do!  Here is Clara frosting a bell sugar cookie.  She loved that part of the job!

It was so much fun getting in gear for Christmas this year with an almost 3-year-old.  She remembered everything about Christmas, and was such a big help with decorating the tree, wrapping presents and putting them under the tree, and baking cookies.