Happy Holidays!

Happy holidays!  We have a family tradition of doing a craft on Christmas eve.  Last year, we tried to make cake pops with cake pop pans and it turned into a disaster.  So this year we bought a cake pan press - similar to a waffle iron, called Baby Cakes or something like that.  It produces nearly perfect cake pops for decorating.  We still had a few kinks in our system that need to be worked out next year, but overall, much improved performance from the year before.

 A birthday bouche de noel for Louie.

 Mollie decorating the cake pops (actually, mostly eating the cake pop decorations)

Mollie and Mac are getting along great these days.  She is lucky he is so patient with her - letting her sit on his head and copy his every movement.  He's very sweet.

 Christmas morning - no shortage of gifts under this tree!

 A little overwhelming...

 Decorating the ginger bread house.

 The finished product!

 Decorator extraordinaire!

 Frosting attack!

Post-Christmas family nap.

Getting into the holiday spirit

Auntie DeeDee Visit

Before Auntie Deedee's and Uncle Jean visited, we had some arts and crafts fun painting a menorah for the holidays (in princess attire of course!)

 Auntie Deedee and Uncle Jean came for a long weekend visit after Thanksgiving.  Mollie couldn't have been happier to see (food) them.

 Little breakfast snuggle buggle.

 Mollie introduced Dee to all her favorite friends and arranged them for their morning lecture.

 Dee brought an Easy Bake Oven for Mollie (courtesy of Dee, Jean-Bernard, Great Grandpa Earl, Grandma Liz and Grandpa David).  It was a huge hit.  For some reason Mollie has had a very prosperous pre-holiday season (note the balance bike from Auntie Marge and Uncle Andrew in the background).  She's a very lucky little girl.

 We took Dee and JB to the National Zoo.  We had a great time - dancing aunts featured below.

 And Mollie took full advantage of having some extra hands around.

 

And in conclusion, we had the following very funny conversations:

 

Devorah Lauter: Mollie, do you have a prince doll?

Mollie Lauter: No, I don't have a prince.

Margie Lauter: That's good because princes are yucky.
Mollie Lauter: Except Jacob [Lauter].  He is a prince and he is not yucky.

Then:
Devorah Lauter: How does Snow White go?
Mollie Lauter: First there is a princess and the bad guy makes her fall asleep.  Then the prince kisses her.  Then the princess wiggles her toes and wakes up.  And then she is happy. 
[This one is a huge paraphrase, but I liked the visual of the wiggling toes.  Thankfully Dee has the complete story on her tape recorder!!]