Christmas Cookies Galore

Christmas just wouldn't be the same without Oma's famous sugar cookies.  Because we love them so much, we had to double the recipe to ensure there was enough left over for Santa.  I had two little helpers the entire night who were in charge of the cookie cutters.  They really worked well together to ensure we had a lovely mixture of shapes.

When Izzy was done with her virtual play practice she joined in.  She however sought out the tiny cookie cutters when we were running low on dough.

On a separate evening, rather than watching Bones (thanks Oma for getting them hooked on this show), we decorated the cookies.  Each of the kids had their own unique style.  By the end of the night, no one cared what the cookies looked like as we were using up all the sprinkles caught in the bowls.

I was the orchestrater of frosting the cookies and keeping everyone in line so we didn't get backed up.

These two were decorated in honor of Opa and Oma.  We giggled at Opa's cookie as we all thought this looked exactly like something he would do.  Oma's was for the multi-colored sprinkles we've come to know of when thinking about her cookies.

Izzy generated this rainbow cookie and announced this was for all of the LGTBQ people celebrating Christmas.

We could not forget about the tiny cookies either.  Izzy painstakingly decorated them with tweezers to ensure all the balls were in the correct spot. 

These were fun checkered shortbread cookies I made for the residents.

Micah saw these gingerbread men weeks ago.  When I returned to purchase them, they were sold out.  Surprisingly more showed up a few days before Christmas and so he got his wish to decorate one.  On Christmas Eve we set up shop and commenced on creating our masterpieces.

Micah's was very simple yet tasteful.

Victoria wanted to make sure her gingerbread woman had a shirt and skirt on.  I especially liked the eyebrows.

None of us could figure out what Izzy was creating.  At one point she wrote "dead" across the forehead and then announced this was a zombie gingerbread man.  I'm glad she changed her design as this wasn't really feeling like Christmas but more like Halloween.

I took the broken gingerbread man and couldn't put him back together again.  Nonetheless he turned out just fine.

 

The Return of Percy

December 1st means, hopefully, the return of Percy to monitor and report to Santa on Izzy, Micah, and Victoria's behavior for the last 25 days until Christmas.  With the ongoing pandemic, Percy was not exempt from the need to quarantine.  Good thing he came equip with his own mask, hand sanitizer, and toilet paper.

In an effort to hasten Percy's quarantine confiscation, he decided to set up a COVID testing site.  Unfortunately, as an employee he was not offered testing and thus stayed in quarantine.

Luckily, given the arrival of Pfizer's vaccination, Percy was on the list to be offered this first.  I though this unfair as I am still awaiting my name to be put on this list!  In addition, this now meant that Percy was out of quarantine.  I almost wished he remained in his 14 day quarantine as he was now free to run amuck.

The following day Victoria awoke to Izzy having camped out beside her.  She took the opportunity to announce she could not make her bed so she didn't touch him lest he lose his magic.

The kids thought it would have been comical should he have gotten stuck in the underwear rather than sweater.

Percy was invited to Barbie's Dream House for a low key Christmas celebration.  Here he met Wonder Woman.  At the end of the night, he courageously asker her out on a date.

Being the pandemic, Percy didn't have much money nor options for dinner.  He decided to order McDonalds from Grub Hub and dine in.

Later, Percy and Wonder Woman played old school video games (Frogger and Pac-Man).

Percy helped referee Victoria's L.O.L doll's basketball game.  Alas, he had to use one of the cat's laser lights as a whistle.  I'm surprised that Coco didn't pounce on the game!

It looks like Percy wasn't able to solve the Rubik's cube.

Percy showed support for Izzy's virtual play Second Star from the Right.  It looks like he can't spell like many people in the family.

Percy developed an appetite will all of his antics!

 

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

Izzy wanted to create a handmade gift for his homeroom teacher (which was also her 4th grade teacher).  Given the pandemic, this seemed all but fitting!  I love how creative she can be.

The recurring theme for 2020 is that traditional holiday celebrations have been postponed or revamped.  This Thanksgiving we would have been enjoying Oma & Opa's company.  However given the upswing in COVID cases and their age, it was best for this to happen another year.  We sat down as a family and discussed how they would like to celebrate knowing it would just be the four of us.  We all agreed to forgo the typical turkey meal at home and find an activity to get us out of the house.  That was easier said than done as many places in MA are still not opened yet.  We had wanted to go to Great Wolf Lodge which was to open over Thanksgiving.  That too was postponed until a yet to be determined date.  Eventually we settled on driving to Red Jacket Resort in New Hampshire to enjoy Kahuna Laguna - their indoor water park.

This was certainly not the typical experience we've had in the past when we've come up here due to the limited number of people allowed in.  That wasn't necessarily a bad thing as there was ample space to enjoy ourselves.  The kid's favorite was the wave pool.  It didn't matter what else we would be doing.  As soon as the kids heard the alarm sounding the beginning of the waves, we dropped everything and headed over.

This is one of my favorite pictures.  Micah and Victoria would sit or lay in the water while the waves pelted them over and over again.

This was Izzy's favorite spot to be as the largest wave occurred here.

Victoria and Micah are now officially tall enough to ride by themselves (over 48 inches tall!) down water slides.  I never thought I'd see this day.  Even so, we all enjoyed riding together in double inner tubes.

I was expecting our Thanksgiving meal to be whatever the options were for in-room dining.  However the hotel was offering a 4 course traditional Thanksgiving meal which Izzy and I ordered.  Micah and Victoria were excited to have other options but did enjoy the soup appetizer and Thanksgiving desserts. 

The following day we stopped at my favorite store in North Conway... The Christmas Loft.  They opened a new store next door (Tricks and Treats) which is all about Halloween.  Definitely still my favorite.

We continued the Bures tradition of putting up the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving... always brings smiles to our faces! 

Jack-o-lanterns

Carving pumpkins was never one of my favorite Halloween activities which is probably why we haven't done it for year.  This year though it was the perfect indoor, pandemic, holiday activity.  Victoria, not surprisingly, wanted to be Micah & Izzy's cheerleader rather than carve her own pumpkin.

Micah chose a small pumpkin and simple face.  He needed help when it came to the cutting part as I bought small electric saws.  This made carving much easier... and may lead to doing it again in the future.

Izzy had a vision but soon learned her pumpkin wasn't large enough.  So she settled on a traditional pumpkin face.

They were very proud of their carvings!