Catching up, Christmas and Snickerdoodles

Well, once again, I am behind. We had a lovely thanksgiving.............make that three! We had lunch with Todd's family, the afternoon at Mamaw Turley's and Dinner with my family. It was busy, but not rushed, and we enjoyed visiting with all of our family!
Let's see..........my birthday was next! I am now another decade older, but really 30 is just a number!! We had dinner for my birthday a couple of times........including an excellent steak prepared by my wonderful father-in-law!
Within a day or two of my birthday, Bryce finally decided he would like to be mobile. And, really, that's all it took. Once he decided he wanted to go somewhere.........he was off, and after crawling for only a couple of days, he starting pulling up on everything! Now he's beginning to cruise around the furniture.........it's all over with but the crying!! I now have TWO mobile kiddos to chase!
I believe that brings us to Christmas!!! We had a GREAT Christmas.....or maybe it was SEVEN! Blaine was so into it this year, and that made it so much more fun for all of us. Everytime he saw Santa, he asked for "a bulldozer and a little dump-truck to go with his big dump-truck at home!" Santa of course pulled through, and we've been scoopin' dirt ever since. Blaine 'ordered' a choo-choo train for Bryce and that is naturally exactly what he recieved! The funniest thing was that Blaine used a string from his robe to tie his bulldozer to Bryce's train, and then requested that we put Bryce on the train so he could pull him around! It was too cute! Bryce enjoyed all of the paper and extra holding, loving and attention he got..........I'm sure he'll enjoy his presents later too!! The boys got a great couch from Nana and Papa and a whole family of puppy dog pillow pets from various other people! The biggest 'hit' of Christmas as far as the presents were concerned was probably the (very inexpensive) 'Band'. Blaine has had a MILD (or maybe EXTREME) obsession with the band since football season. He loves everything band related, and has used everything from coat hangers to gun holsters as a 'band'. Grammy got him a Mickey Mouse band set.............and we've ALL been playing in the band!!

Todd and Blaine playing in the band on Christmas Eve

Todd and Boys after opening presents at Grammy's house

Bryce ready to eat dinner!

I guess I'm sort of back -tracking, but we have a family tradition of making snickerdoodles at Todd's parents house during the week leading up to Christmas. We usually make 3 to 4 double batches of these delicious little cookies. We eat lots of them, and share the rest with friends and family. This was Blaine's first year to participate in the snickerdoodle experience, and he LOVED every minute of it! Here are some pictures of the cookie making process.......