The Saturday 7

1. I decided to get serious about limiting Lena's binky time last week. She can have it in bed and in the car, but not during the rest of her waking hours. For the most part, it's going well. She usually cries for a while in the morning when I take it away, but once she's sufficiently distracted, she forgets about it. At least until something upsets her, when she starts crying, "Binky! Feel better!" One day this week, she handed me her binky after her nap and told me to put it up, saying, "Big girl." That incident has yet to repeat itself. Haha.

2. We finished our advent activities with making a candle to give Grandma VK, making craft stick stars, and making cookies to deliver to our local librarians. We made my mom's famous peanut butter cookies and the librarians raved that they were the best peanut butter cookies they'd ever had. Maybe they were just being nice, but I tend to agree and thought I'd share the recipe in case you want to test it out for yourselves:

Crackle Top Peanut Butter Cookies
3/4 c. butter
3/4 c. white sugar
3/4 c. brown sugar
1 egg
3/4 c. peanut butter
1 tsp. vanilla
1 3/4 c. flour 
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

Combine ingredients and refrigerate for a couple hours to overnight.
Roll dough into 1" balls.
Roll balls in sugar. 

Bake @ 375* for 10-12 min.

I made this cute card to go with them:

Season's G"read"ings!

3. We had a wonderful Christmas as usual. On Christmas Eve, we went to Justin's parents' house for a delicious dinner and family time. Justin's brother Jesse was home from California, and he literally entertained Lucy all night. I told him later that it was the best Christmas gift he ever could've given her: playing along with all her ridiculous games. At one point I heard him say, "Oh yes! I've always wanted to be a fairy!"

There wasn't enough room for everyone at the big table, so Uncle Jesse and Lucy sat at their own special kids' table.

Jesse is literally a professional Santa Claus. He went to Santa Claus school and everything!

Justin's parents spoiled us all with gifts, we played Wizard, and we stuffed ourselves with amazing food. Good times were had by all! When we got home, my siblings were all over and Lucy sat down right in the middle of everyone to show off every single gift she got.

4. On Christmas morning, my siblings all came back over and the celebrations began anew! The kids found their stockings, my dad read to us from the Bible, then we did our annual "activity." This year, we were split into two teams and given scavenger hunt clues to race to a prize. My team lost. But it was a blast. And then the present opening began.

All the kids.

The girls loved it, and had so much fun tearing into everything.

It was a very "Frozen" Christmas for Lucy.

After Lena had opened a few presents, though, she got pretty sick of it and just wanted to run around and play with her stuff. We eventually let her stop opening them, and set them aside for after her nap.

We spent all day playing games and decorating cookies and eating way too much good food again. Absolutely my favorite day of the year.

5. Since Christmas, I've been spending a ton of time rearranging toys to make room for the new ones. And I've been playing with the new Kindle fire Justin got me. Woohoo!

Not much else to report. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! We have one more party tomorrow, then on to New Year celebrations! Stay tuned for my 2014 Recap entry and an update on my new year's resolutions. Still mulling over whether or not to make any for 2015 . . .