The Countdown has begun....

 Today officially starts the week before Christmas.  One more week of work ahead of us (a full week) and we are off to the present opening, ho-ho-ho-ing and celebrating the LBJ.  Today, Abby and I spent the morning baking some cookies.  We had a lazy day since last week we were at church ALL DAY last Sunday and it was her birthday party that Saturday.  I know this sounds bad, and not very holiday Christian of us, but everyone is exhausted and the holidays are running at us full steam.  We made the Hershey kiss drop ones, and some chocolate chip.  That's all we got through before we made the ornaments that look like cookies that you can paint.  That was a lot of fun using the cookie cutters.

Mommy and Abby making some cookies.

 After making some cookies, Abby and I went to Petsmart to get Joey some much needed toothpaste.  Abby got to see Santa- he was taking pictures with pets.  The animal shelter people told her to hurry up because we weren't buying a picture.  (I told her we really didn't have the extra money for a pet photo.)  I glared at them and ignored them.  It's a kid with Santa the week before Christmas.  Really?! 
But, it was nice to see the jolly Elf himself one more time and to hear that she still wanted a drumset.  Phew.
Abby's friend Brady came over to paint the ornaments later in the afternoon and to play Play Doh with her.  It was great.  I spent 45 minutes setting up and then they painted for like 7 minutes and left.  It took that long just to get their aprons on.  Oh well.  The fun thing is that Brooks was interested so I handed him the paintbrush and he made it through two ornaments before he started eating paint. While it is a little young for paint, when Daddy is an art teacher, the kids around here (ours and the ones who visit) are pretty much handed 'real' art materials.  We use all sorts of stuff- charcoals, pastels, water colors, acrylics.  Rarely does he get out the coloring books with them.  But Mommy is super cool, because she lets the kids use glitter- and Daddy does not.

Brooksey painting- FIRST TIME!

Eating his product- it does look like a cookie.

Brooks's ornaments.

Abby's Ornaments

After the ornaments, it was dark, so we went out to see that Daddy had decorated Abby's playhouse for Christmas.  Super cute.  Abby was really excited, especially since there was a big Frosty in there!

So overall, it was a fun, Christmas-y day.  We didn't get a lot done around the house.  But, we did manage to do some fun things with the kids.  And now, they are knock-on-wood sleeping.