Celebrating the Season

This weekend we decked our house out for the Christmas season. It was so much fun to see Ben's reaction to everything this year since he is so much more excited about everything than last year.

We knew that he would love going to the local farm to pick out our Christmas tree - he's been obsessed with Christmas trees since they started to appear in the stores (in September!) and he loves the outdoors more than anything, no matter how chilly it is. We were not mistaken; getting the tree was probably the highlight of his day. He ran up and down the aisles of trees yelling "tree! tree!" interspersed with "Uh-oh. Dada?" whenever Andrew was out of his view. Then he would run faster to try to hunt his dad down and laugh when he finally did find him amongst the evergreens.

Ben in action, searching for the right tree for us.

Ah-ha, I think the boys have found our tree. Here they are sizing it up. Yes, they do have matching jackets, too, just in case someone didn't think they already looked like clones!


On the road, headed home...


Once decorated at home, Ben became intrigued with the ornaments, especially the Bob the Builder one that we placed front and center. Here he is sneaking a peek at it, trying to look non-chalant...


"Maybe if I run away really quickly, nobody will notice that it's gone..."


Later on we all baked cookies together. Not just any cookies but the "cooky" press green Christmas tree spritz cookies that Andrew always used to make with his mom when he was a little boy. It has become a tradition in our house to make these every year and Andrew is always in charge of them.

Did I mention that the best part about being the only source of estrogen in the house is that you can make your boys dress up in matching Christmas aprons while they bake together? In defense of Andrew's masculinity, the adult-sized apron really is mine but he needed to keep clean somehow, didn't he?


Ben enjoyed sorting (and resorting and resorting again) the cookie press disks in the retro cooky press kit that Andrew found on ebay last year, a direct replica of his mom's old cooky press they always used.

Uh-oh, maybe I shouldn't have put Ben in charge of the sprinkles for the tops of the cookies. Well, after one huge dump, we gave him his own cupful to play with while I took over sprinkle duty. He seemed to find the whole situation quite amusing, though.

Andrew takes cookie making very seriously, apparently. They all must be perfectly engineered and laid out :).
Yum! Cookie dough and sprinkles! And it's red and green, too...

"CHEESE!!!" Ben is into saying "cheese" when you take his photo and then making a super-goofy face for the camera. Here he is, goofy-faced and covered in red sprinkles!

Later on, trying the goods once they came out of the oven. Yum! Ever since Ben had this first "tree" yesterday he has been asking for "more....tree!" ever since!