Getting into the Christmas spirit

Cookie Day was a great success. Chloë and Addie helped cut out sugar cookies and then decorate them. They enjoyed the sprinkles especially. We emptied one bottle and almost ran out of four others (though with two we also used some for snickerdoodles). Chloë was enthusiastic in her decorating attempts, as you can see:

We divided up the cookies between Addie, Mimi, and us. "Cookies for Grandpa and Halmoni," Chloë reminded me, so we put some of ours in the freezer to send later. (There's still a week for the mail to run, right?)

Tuesday we put up the tree, and Wednesday we decorated it. Chloë adored this. She loved when we turned the lights off to see the lit-up tree in the dark, and had great fun hanging "omerats." We'd hand her an ornament and hoist her up on the table and help her place it. "Another one!" she would cry immediately. Then she'd say, "Where mouse?" or "Where my picture?" and we'd have to hunt for the mouse ornament or baby's-first-Christmas ornament she'd put on a few turns back. We had to stop her before the tree collapsed under the weight of the ornaments. It's only a little tree. Though when Eric said that, Chloë immediately said "It is not a little tree," the same way she says, "I am not a little girl," when we call her that by mistake. We told her to wait until she sees Memaw's.

And last night when I came home, Chloë was munching on something. "Mommy I am eatin' a fruit bar," she told me. We buy these from Target (they have a whole selection: fruit strips, bites, ropes, and yogurt-drizzled bars. Chloë likes them all) and I knew Eric had taken them out there to get a few things and to Bed, Bath & Beyond to get a new candy thermometer, since I had ruined my fourth this year trying to make fudge. (That is, I've ruined four kitchen thermometers, but the first three were in the service of finding the right amount of water to use in the bottle warmer to scald Maia's milk. The fourth I ruined earlier this week on my fourth attempt at fudge. If you are so fortunate as to get fudge from us this year, know that a lot of time and effort went into it. If you aren't, don't be surprised.)

I said, "Oh good," or something similar, and put away the milk and my lunch bag, purse, and pump. Meanwhile Chloë pointed at the BB&B bag still on the floor. "Mommy we went shopping," she said. "We bought slippers. We bought a thermometer." I made appropriate mmm-hmm? noises, noting that first item but hoping Eric hadn't noticed, and got us all upstairs to change my clothes (I'm the only one who's required for this operation, but it generally ends up being all of us, or at least three of us, in the bedroom while I'm doing it anyway). In the bedroom we talked of other things, but Chloë was quite interested in her day. "We went shopping," she said. "We bought you some slippers."

"Did you?" I said. "I bet Daddy wishes you hadn't told me that."

"I do," Eric grumbled. This is why I shopped for Eric's gifts online this year.