Getting Back to Normal - Almost....

Hello everyone!  I hope you have all enjoyed a lovely Christmas - we certainly have at our house.  Today is our first steps back toward normal life.  Aaron and Crissie have returned home and Ian is looking at the calendar to determine his date to return to Atlanta.   Bethany is excited to start teaching second grade full-time after the new year... and Doug and I are ready for life to settle down again.  Personally I am ready to spend a little less time in the kitchen, though we have had some wonderful meals over the last week.

Yesterday we had our two final salutes to the Christmas season.  The "kids" and I spent some time frosting our cutout sugar cookies and the gateau bon bons (though we had eaten half of the bon bons unfrosted).  For those of you who are new to the blog since last Christmas, my children take Christmas cookies to a whole new level and do not know how to do a traditional frosted cookie. 

If the cookies in the photo above look boringly normal that is because I frosted them!  My cookies were, for the most part, very traditional looking.  Of course they drew rolling of the eyes a disappointed glances from my offspring!!  LOL

The cookies below are a better example of my kids' cookies.  The cookies in this photo were frosted by my future daughter-in-law, Crissie.  I thought she did a nice job on her Hulk figure, the "traditional" snowman, her Jesus angle, and her fun fish and trees.

Here is a peek at my creative three:  Bethany, Aaron, and Ian (yes, Ian grew a beard since Thanksgiving!). 

Below are a few of Aaron's cookies:  Spiderman badge, pirate snowman, angry tree, and hangman cane.  He also had a great Ninja Turtle that was not photographed.

In the photo below Crissie is working hard while Bethany is hardly working! 

After our cookie afternoon, we had a wonderful dinner - Doug grilled out for us!  After dinner we were joined by our friends the Garlands' for sodas, Christmas cookies, and card games!  So now we are going to get back to normal... Or at least our household version of normal!

Thanks for stopping by today.  I will be back soon with another post.