a sweet family day

A gingerbread party and more family fun...

I'm really thankful for quiet weekends as we look forward to Christmas and have the chance to enjoy time making new traditions together.  Today was a great day of these sweet moments!

We started the morning with a fun gingerbread house party with friends...

getting ready for our friends!

gingerbread play dough and chocolate gingerbread cookies for the girls
with a cream cheese danish for the moms!

working hard right away!

"more" Abby said,
she knew the candy tasted good!

Madison was working hard too

all finished...

or so we thought - she decided to add more after the "party"
but made this concerned face because there was
"no more pace!" she said (space!)

Then after cleaning up, eating lunch, nap time (including a quick grocery run and a jack pot trip to the free campus thrift store for me), and folding laundry we headed out for a little walk.  We were able to see some of the festive things going on just up the hill where a Christmas Parade took place and people were still out and about at the shops decorated festively.

After our dinner and Moriah's bath time, we headed out to Starbucks for a special treat in Christmas pajamas.  Moriah tasted her first hot chocolate (and she did enjoy it!) and then we were off to find Christmas lights in Louisville neighborhoods.  We headed out to Lake Forest this year, and found lots of well decorated yards and homes.  It was worth the short drive, though we didn't see the live reindeer we'd heard about (they may not be there, or we may have missed them - we didn't look too hard).

our camera's batteries are dead so this was a
quick and blurry snap shot before they faded!

We came home in enough time to open and read another nightly Advent book and then to add one more piece to our Advent nativity scene.  Moriah jabbered herself to sleep as usual these days after a full day of fun :)