Brief thoughts from tonight

Imagy and I got the lights on the tree this afternoon, and when Widget got up from her nap we decorated the tree. Actually, Imagy ended up doing a good deal of it, I was buzzing around a bit getting things done. Widget was cute. She had very definite ideas about where the ornaments should go, and she kept wanting them to clump them right close together. At the moment there's about 6 of the same red bulb in the same 6 square inches. Silly kidlet.

We opened presents with Imagy and Damian tonight as well. Widget was very excited about that. Happily, she's still at the age where she wants to play with each present as they're opened, instead of moving right on the the next present. I wonder how much longer that will last before she gets into the "NEXT!" mentality. She got a couple of great puzzles, including one that's bug shaped pieces, with little magnets in them. It came with a little bug "net" with a magnet on it, so you can catch the pieces. Widget loves it.

I finished her Santa ornament (from last year), and I started on her this year ornament tonight. Nice simple pattern, should be able to finish it in time. Yay.

In non-Christmas stuff, when I came downstairs wearing my contacts this afternoon, Widget wigged out, and demanded I go upstairs and put my glasses back on. It probably took 10 minutes of cajoling before I could get her to come near me. Weird.

Imagy got me the neatest book as my present. It's called "Unexpected knitting" and it's got some WACKY knitting patterns in it. I'm super excited to experiment with some of the techniques. She wrote the nicest inscription too. Such a sweetie.

(no subject)

We have a LOT of gingerbread cookies now. That is all.

More on those cookies!

On SUnday we went to a cookie making party for whuffle's birthday. Towards the end of the party, it was discovered that there was a whole batch of gingerbread dough that hadn't been used. Due to the unfortunate demise of their oven door, it couldn't be used, either. So, at great sacrifice to myself (heehee), I volunteered to take the dough.

We decided to bake the cookies this morning. Now, on Sunday, Widget had been a little too wired to really make cookies, and there was too much other stuff going on, and the group effort was more on decorating rather than cutting out the cookies, which was a little beyond Widget's skill level. So, all told, she didn't really do much with the cookies except eat them.

Today, I rolled out the first batch of dough on the table then called Widget in. Imagy and I stuck her in her chair, and let her have at it. She loved trying to roll out the dough, and was even getting good at it by the end. We used the cookie cutters she'd gotten as a holiday present, and a glass to get good round cookies as well. She had a lot of fun picking which shapes to use, and trying to pick up the cut cookies. She kept trying to eat the dough, but that's mostly okay.

Having a second adult around was great, we tag teamed so that she was still supervised when the batches had to come in and out of the oven. She loved eating the cookies she'd made, and I think she's excited about bringing some to share on Christmas. After reading mamawrites's post about crazy cookie baking with her two year old, I'm thinking Imagy Widget and I had a good approach to the cookie making. (Of course, it sounds like she had a good time too.)

Definitely a lot of fun, and something we should make a more regular activity around here, I think.