Cookies and Winterhaven

I forgot just how nice it is to be in school and have close to a month off! In all fairness I worked this week too but between the furlough day yesterday and the holiday today it wasn't much of a work week. Evie and I have been taking full advantage of our time off to be both productive and utterly slothful. Productivity was Tuesday when friends came over to make cookies with us. Evie had not seen her friend in quite awhile and was so excited to see her that she made her a card and a comic strip (through a game on PBS kids) that day to give to her. The girls played and played for over three hours and, not surprisingly, most of the decorating of the massive amounts of sugar cookies actually fell to the motherly set.

On Wednesday Evie and I tried out her roller skates... for a first attempt it went pretty well for her. She even managed to skate a few feet on her own before toppling over. Then we went out so that she could pick out her annual Christmas tree ornament as well as buy a gift for Patrick, my mom, my dad and my brother. My favorite part of the day was the long luxurious nap that we both took. Thursday was even more lazy. The day started off dark and rainy so we decided to do a movie day. Of course by 10 am, this being Arizona after all, it was beautiful, warm and sunny, but having started down our slothful path we decided to see it through.


Then last night we went to my personal favorite Christmas activity... Winterhaven! I brought the camera with me and then realized its a bit silly at this point because I just take pictures of the same houses/decorations every year. And by the time I realized that really the only point in bringing the camera is to take pictures of Evie we were practically on our way home. The big hit this year (aside from the water display which is always number one with Evie) was the (I kid you not) Caroling for Jesus karaoke set up in one of the front yards, complete with a stage made out of bales of hay. Evie really wanted to get up and sing like her big friends that we were there with, but given that she can't read, and there was no way I was getting up to sing with her (no one wants to hear that) I told her it would have to wait until next year. (Or maybe the year after)