Claire's Piano Recital

Claire had her first piano recital this past weekend. She was so excited and we are so proud of her. She started taking lessons in September and is now learning from the books I quit in after two years of lessons. She loves it and is amazing. Grandma made special Christmas dresses for all the girls and they got to wear their special dresses that night with their cousins. They all looked sooooo cute!
Kaylee kept doing these funny smiles. But here are my cute girls in their dresses in front of my nutcracker collection. My favorite Christmas decorations :)

All the cousins

Christmas Cookies

This past Saturday we took the day off from life and made Christmas Cookies. It was so fun for me and the girls to just spend the afternoon making a total mess in the kitchen and coming out with some interesting cookies.Corinne making finger prints :)She wants to help so bad :)
Claire and Kaylee frosting the cookies

The final, colorful product!

These are called Thumbprint Cookies. They are our all time favorite Christmas Cookie. The recipe comes from Betty Crocker's 1963 Cooky Book, the best cookie book ever!

Thumbprint Cookies

1/2 cup butter, 1 cup Flour

1/4 cup brown sugar (packed), 1/4 tea salt

1 egg separated, 1/2 tea vanilla

3/4 cup finely chopped nuts, Raspberry jelly

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix butter, sugar, egg yolk, and vanilla thoroughly. Blend together flour and salt; stir in. (I just use a normal hand mixer) Roll dough into balls (1 tsp. per ball). Beat egg whites slightly with a fork. Dip balls in egg white. Roll in nuts. Place about 1" apart on ungreased baking sheet; press thumb gently in center of each. Bake 10-12 min. Cool and fill thumbprints with jelly.

Sweetie Peetie

I have a wonderful friend who started making tutu's for girls and selling them online and at craft shows. She is amazing, and to display all her hard work she needed some models, so of course my girls jumped at the chance to help! Here are some of the cute pics, she so graciously shared with me. You can check out her website at: http://www.sweetiep.com/ Cute Kaylee

Corinne striking a pose

Beautiful Claire

Bubbles!

My little cherubSisters