SNOW

Finally some snow, means that we can go outside and play.  It would have been nice to have had a white Christmas but at least today there was enough to go sledding.  Jackies new sled had been played with a little but today we finally got to go enjoy the hill on the side of the house and the sled.   All bundled up we had a lot of fun outside although Jacqueline in not a fan of walking on the snow, just being pulled.

Meeuwsen Christmas Parties

The extended Meeuwsen Christmas Party was in the Gym at school this year which was great.  It was no nice to have a place where all the kiddos could play.  The kids got to climb the wall and the big kids played volleyball.  Jacqueline had a lot of fun trying to play basketball so cute to watch her throw the ball up like her bigger cousins.  (It often when behind her instead of at the hoop but she was having lots of fun.)

Then on Sunday we had Brunch with Oma and Opa and opened a few presents there before they head up to Alaska.  There will be more presents to open with the family over Skype but Jacqueline got to open her gifts from Oma and Opa.

She has not really been into the whole unwrapping thing so some of the gifts we had to start for her but once she could see what was inside then she would get more excited about opening the rest of the way.

She got pots, pans, bowls, and utensils for her kitchen, and Oma made the cute little froggie apron that she is wearing in the next several pictures.  Once the apron was on she did NOT want to take it off.

This last photo she is on her other big toy from Oma and Opa.  I think it will get a lot of miles put on it in the basement this winter.

All this fun and it isn't even Christmas Day yet...

Play Kitchen

 When Adam was in high school he won this entertainment center at his high school graduation.  It worked great at the old house in the basement but Pinterest and Jacqueline came along and I decided it needed to be repurposed.  So Jackie's big present from Adam and I this year is her new play kitchen.  Adam did all the hard work making Fridge doors that are actually magnetic, the french glass oven doors and the cabinet door for under the sink. The sink is out of an old science that Opa Paul had, as is the faucet.  Her light is from my old studio.  Grandam Carol provided the chalkboard paint for her menu board (the other side wall that you can not see in the photo is chalkboard paint too so that she can color. The hardware is the stuff we removed from the kitchen at the new house and wire racks in the oven are part of an old shoe rack.  A local appliance store gave us the knobs off a broken stove and I used linoleum samples from Lowes to tile around the sink.  All in all it was a fun project, and hopefully it will be a lot of fun to play with for both girls.

Early Christmas Parties

So we have had a few Christmas Parties already, which is kinda nice.  It spreads out the gifts, and the fun.  Our first party was with the extended Stouten side, a chance to see Grandpa Ed, Sharon and Jim.  Jacqueline loved having everyone over and being the center of attention, and she received a darling book from all of them with a magic wand.
 Then last night we did just our Stouten Family and I feel like all of us were spoiled rotton.  I know Jacqueline loves all her gifts but her favorite part of the night was singing and dancing with aunt Kelly.  Tonight is the extend Meeuwsen side.  I think Jacqueline will just have fun playing with all the cousins.

Grandma Audrey Spider Cookies

So it would not be Christmas without cookies, but that was always especially true at Grandma Audrey's house.  She would make loads of cookies and send them home with everybody, Uncle David would eat cookies from the moment he walked in her door till the ride home.  I know she always made several kinds but in my memory Spider Cookies stand out as her speciality.  They are nothing fancy just peanuts, chow main noodles, chocolate and butterscotch chips but the taste of them always reminds me of Christmas at Grandma's.  Memories of her red ceramic Santa boot filled with candy canes, the wooden nativity puzzel, a can of regular coke and watching Charle Brown in the breeze way flood into my mind when I eat these cookies.  This weekend Grandpa Ed is coming to our house for dinner, so Jackie and I whipped up a batch of these cookies today.  I think that the amount of chocolate around her gigant smile would tell you they were a hit with her today too.  Jacqueline did feel the need to add sprinkles (that's the jar in her hand) to the top to decorate.  I think I will need to hide the cookies if I want them to last til Saturday.

Making Cookies

 I have several fond memories of baking and more importantly decorating cookies as a little kid and so I was very excited to be able to start this tradition with Jacqueline this year.  She loves to use the mixer and watch it go round and round.  Throwing flour on the counter to roll out the cookies was fun too.  She even got into cutting out the cookies, sometimes causing us to have to re-roll the dough because she cut cookie on-top of cookie on-top of cookie.

 The perk of helping mommy bake is taste testing as you go.  I am sure you would be shocked to know that Jacqueline really liked helping to clean up the mixer blade after making frosting.  (I scraped it really clean before I let her have it, because I knew getting it back was going to be a problem.)

 Just for this tradition we got a new plate at the store today. We may need to refill it a few times this holiday season, Jacqueline really liked the snowman plate.  And every-time I read her the words and she would respond "Ho, ho ho" for santa and hold up the plate fore me to read it again.

 Then we were on to the fun part...SPRINKLES!  Thankfully she managed to keep the bulk of the sprinkles on the plate.  There is a definite deference between the amount of sprinkles on the cookies that I decorated and the ones that Jacqueline did.  (On the plus side hers were coated thick enough with sprinkles that they stacked really nicely on the plate.)

 An hour of making and decorating and almost an hour to clean it all up afterwards.  But Jacqueline did help with all of it including the clean-up.  

And the final picture, the finished product of all our hard work, a few plates of cookies, a lot of pictures and some really fun memories.

20 months and 3rd trimester

I took Jacqueline's 20 month photos on Tuesday after going in for a regular visit to the OB.  Grace is doing great!  She like to kick harder and more then Jacqueline ever did.  Anyway while we were there the doctor said "so third trimester finally".   Finally?  With Jacqueline it did seem to take forever but right now I feel like time is flying by.  Hard to believe how big both kiddos are getting.  

Jacqueline started singing the ABC's in the car yesterday, she made it to J with out any help.  I was so proud of her.  She just loves to sing and dance.  (In this photo she is singing and doing the motions for the song "This old Man".
If you look at the photos on shutterfly you will see that at first she really was not interested in me taking photos on this day, she covered up, took off and tasted the sticker instead of smiling, but once we started singing then I had a very happy little girl.

Christmas PJs

Jackie got to open one of her Christmas Presents today.  She was given the book " The Pajama Elves"
by Hayden Edwards, and new Christmas PJ's,also in the box was a set of chap sticks. I will have to take more pictures of her in her PJ's from the back because there are fute little ruffels all over the bum, and so you miss some of the fun in these photos but she just wanted to play with her chap sticks.  She also enjoyed putting chap stick on the bear that she got from Aunt Fran.