Christmas Day

Christmas Day.  Present opening  goes on forever (despite last year's picking of names for the adults), if you blink you will miss something (especially if you are filming and taking pictures), we have a snack/coffee refill half way thru (I certainly take part in that) , there is so much wrapping that gifts get thrown out by mistake (not sure who lost what this year)and when you think it is over there is always one more :)  It's the best.

LOTS of joke gifts...especially sister to sister.

My nephew Conor (in photo holding one of his Dad's gifts) brought his elephant from home that Santa brought him...  Amelia and Olivia were enthralled with it.

Lots of hamming it up and posing for the camera and each year it seems we have a new addition to the group.  This year it was Ciara sitting on her Dad's lap in the last pic.  More presents under the tree!

By afternoon everyone gets cranky and silly.  Time for dinner.

Didn't get any pics of Amelia in the wee morning digging thru her stocking or finding her dollhouse under the tree that Santa had left :)  I caught it all on video though and will surely be popping up somewhere in the future. 

Next:  After Christmas Activities!

I Digress

Need to interrupt all this Christmas reflection with a bit of real time reality.

  

It was -26 in Eagle River over the weekend.  No amount of bundling up of a 2 year old is enough to head outside.  The sun shined bright and frankly Amelia was a bit confused as to why we were not going outside.

We opted for indoor activities including playing with her My Little Pony and Littlest Petshop playsets she received for Christmas and Cupcake making. 

I saw the squeeze bottles on Pinterest and my niece mentioned pancake batter in them too.  They make it soooo much easier for kids to fill cupcake liners!  Only a few drips when she was not paying attention to the task at hand (I asked her to look at the camera ahhaha).  She did about 6 and said "mom you finish them."  Fine.  Whipped up some buttercream icing and we have cupcakes for the week (or more) as our neighbor, Jim is not home to share with. 

Funny too, I was just thinking Spring the other day (when it was +30 degrees) and a package arrived from Bebe Bella Designs ... that certainly put me back into 

the spring mode! 

First time I have ordered from here and all were on sale :) Tank dresses, shoulder tie dresses, tunic tops, flowery hair band and striped capris were all included. Think she has enough dresses!  Actually...enough clothes in general!

Amelia loves to get packages in the mail and this one she gasped at and wanted to put on the "bee" dress.

   

Apparently, I have an Alaskan child as she could run around in a sleeveless tank all day and never say she is cold.  I did insist on the long sleeve shirt underneath.  It's -26 outside!!!  Good grief.

Next:  back to Christmas Day at the Wierbinski's.  

Sorry for the distraction :)

A Cowboy Snowman and Christmas Cookies Wierbinski Style

Another 7 hour car ride brought us back to New York.  Last minute shopping, wrapping and cookie making were in order...oh and a very appreciated snow fall.

Making Christmas Cookies is a tradition at the Wierbinski house, however, it is more about being a bit crazy rather than beauty (much like the tootsie roll cookie or the icing blob cookie) and we have a few artists among us now, that brings it to a whole new level.

My sister picked up these silver sprinkles that turned out to be the hit of the whole cookie making event as they tasted like metal....of course we didn't realize this until after decorating several cookies and then testing them.

The cookie makers at work:

Cookie baking was not the only thing we tried to cram in before Christmas Day.  It snowed!  In the moister air of CNY this means...SNOWMAN making!  We did do some sledding behind the house too of course :) 

My nephew Aaron and I did most of the creating, until Amelia and Dad arrived from playing on the snow covered swing set.

It was perfect snow and Amelia LOVED the cowboy hat!

I posted the family picture day earlier when I was in NY, but I did miss this pic:  My great nephew Conor and a snowball fight with his  two very cool uncles...I am sure Conor won :)

Next:  Christmas Day