Making cookies with friends

Emma has really enjoyed making Christmas cookies! Monday we decorated gingerbread cookies with the Goodsells. Emma and Madison were a little liberal with the amount of sprinkles they added to several cookies, but all the kids had such a good time.

What fun!

Take a look at the number of chocolate sprinkles on that one poor cookie...Megan and I did quite a bit of spreading decorations out!

We had a really fun time and are looking forward to doing it again sometime!

Christmas photo shoot

Emma loves to get her picture taken so much, that we have impromptu photo shoots often, sometimes multiple times a day. Yesterday I pulled her hair all back together to see what it would look like and it turned out gorgeous!

Striking a pose:

Our favorite! This couldn't have turned out better if I had posed her...she just loves sitting and looking at the tree!

And of course Will got in on the action

So sweet!

2 month update

Its hard to believe that Will is already 2 months old! Will went for his 2 month well visit yesterday and weighed in at 11 pounds, 9 ounces and 22 inches long! He's just below the 50th percentile for both height and weight, and the doctor said that he is very strong -- Will even showed off by rolling over for her!

It took Will a while to start smiling, but we enjoy his sweet smile all day long. His big sister loves to get him to smile!

Love that face!

And this one too!

Happy 2 months Will!

Christmas Tree, Part 2

Emma loves our Christmas tree! She calls out 'tree!' when she is coming down the steps in the morning and spots it. She helped with some of the decorating, but was actually content to watch and hand ornaments to us. We took some pictures of her putting up her gaggle of "Baby's First Christmas" ornaments that she received last year!

with Daddy:

with Mommy:

Emma also loves to play with the figures in our Nativity. We're so glad they are made of plastic and she is able to enjoy them!

She especially enjoys putting baby Jesus in his bed!

And Emma is being Mommy's helper putting gifts under the tree!

Christmas Tree

We got our Christmas tree last weekend! Its been quite a busy week, so I am just getting around to putting up the pictures. We went to Hickman's Tree Farm where we have cut our tree down every year except last year. We went with our good friends the Thompsons, which made Emma very excited.

Our tree!

Emma wasn't quite sure what was going on

especially when Daddy starting cutting the tree!

She really enjoyed watching

And when we were finished cutting down the tree and were carrying it back, she kept saying 'more'! One tree is enough!

We warmed up with some delicious hot chocolate and whipped cream!

Decorating for Christmas

This week Emma has had a blast helping me decorate for Christmas! She has been a big help getting different things out, holding things and handing them too me, and talks about baby Jesus all the time!

Of course, her vocabulary is expanding to include all the new things we're putting up: stockings, candles, door (for the wreath), candy cane).

As we put up our stockings I told her which stocking belonged to Daddy, Mommy, Emma, and Will and she remembers and will point each one out to us!

I cross-stitched Emma's stocking last year! I'm still working on Will's, so he gets the Baby's First Christmas stocking that my sisters and I used.

Emma loves the candles in the windows, and wants them on all the time.

She thought they were pretty exciting last year too...look how much she's grown!

Cutest thing ever! I taught her how to sit in front of the fire at my parents house and hold out her hands to feel the heat and she does it to the candles!

Finding baby Jesus in the snow globe. At Costco the other day Emma pointed out all the different baby Jesus pictures she saw, and she has no idea about Santa! While we are not going to ignore Santa, its great to see that she is learning the real meaning of Christmas at such a young age!

Next up: baking Christmas cookies and getting our tree!