December 22nd

Today was wonderful because…

I went out for dinner (Olive Garden, very tasty), went to a movie (The Hobbit, quite good), and had a great time throughout.

I brought gingerbread cookies along (the ones baked yesterday) because it seemed appropriate and because movie theater snacks are outrageously priced-and they’re not even made with love!

Time for some sleep, then it’s up early to finish assembling and baking a pan of raspberry rolls (think cinnamon rolls, but flavored like a raspberry danish) and then we’re having our family (at home) Christmas. I might be more excited for presents than the four year old who is receiving most of the gifts. To be clear, I’m excited about the gifts I’ve gotten FOR people. If I get things, it’s just a bonus. I’m quite happy eating candy canes and sweet rolls.

Wonderful.

December 21

Today was wonderful because…

My niece and I made gingerbread cookies.

I cheated and got the dough from a great bakery in the area so all we had to do was roll it out, shape it, bake it, and decorate it. There were a few hurdles in our process, but my goal was just to spend time with her doing something we love together. If they turned out awful and we had to throw them all away, I didn’t care, I was only out a little money and some time. No biggie.

One of the hurdles was: we couldn’t find the cookie cutters. A little out of the box thinking resulted in: using a little round tupperware container to make circles we could decorate as ornaments. I also cut out triangles to make into trees. Some of the circles later were decorated as wreaths, and the circle shape just generally made a great blank canvas for any of the decorations-it was more like a traditional sugar cookie. I also ended up using our colored frosting to turn some of the triangles into santa hats which are super cute!

The other hurdle was that the process was far too slow for the niece. She wanted to jump full force into the best part: frosting and sprinkles, and, of course, eating. She helped me get the first batch cut out and on the sheets (all the while bossing me about the best methods. We fight like an old married couple) then my mom distracted her with some other tasks until all of the cookies were baked and cooled.

I was going to let her help me with the frosting and the sprinkles, but the frosting was almost too hard for even me to do so she became the designated sprinkles person and I did the frosting. We used decorator frosting/icings made by Betty Crocker, they come in modified piping bags and are AMAZING ly easy. No prep, virtually no clean up, but the key to the decorations is to not cut open the tip too much, so it makes squeezing the icing out incredibly difficult. My hands were almost numb afterwards and I had to have my mom help transfer cookies around and close sprinkle containers because I couldn’t do it.

All in all, our cookies turned out great. They’re all unique and individual. Personally, I think they’re all super cute. And they taste great too!

Wonderful.

December 20th

Today was wonderful because…

I picked my niece up from daycare and we had a car dance party for the entire drive home.

It’s been quite some time since we’d done that, and it was just as fun as ever!

Bonus: She’d made a reindeer headband at daycare with her handprints for antlers so I kept getting glimpses of that in the rear view mirror every time I glanced at it. So festive!

 

Wonderful.

December 16th

Today was wonderful because…

-It started with a brownie ice cream sundae breakfast

-Included a quick trip to a friend’s wherein I dropped off empty canning jars (from delicious pickles, tomatoes, salsa, and relish) and picked up coffee beans and local, raw, organic honey.

-Ended with snuggles with my niece. As we were cuddling there was a moment of silence and I whispered to her, “I like you a lot.” She looked at me with a goofy grin and said, “I like YOU a lot!” Gotta love it.

*Just the highlights of the day*

Wonderful.

December 8th

Today was wonderful because…

My niece participated in her very first dance recital!

I’m not sure I can fully relay to all of you exactly how adorable 22 3-5 year olds in purple, sparkly dresses with tulle skirts is when they’re just walking into a gymnasium holding hands. So I surely can’t tell you how much cuter it became when they started dancing their routine.

I almost exploded from the level of cute which was reached.

The entire recital was about an hour and had dance groups from my niece’s (the youngest) all the way up to high school seniors. Every group did a great job! After her two numbers, my niece sat with us for the rest of the show. She was completely mesmerized by the dancers, and kept repeatedly telling us she was going to do that when she got big too!

There were a handful of other fun things this day as well, but those were the standout moments. She’s very excited to go to class on Monday to start working on her next routines for the spring.

Wonderful.

December 7th

Today was wonderful because…

My niece made me laugh and we got to cuddle.

She does this thing, as most 4 year olds do, where she pretends to be a puppy. I was standing around, holding her this morning, telling her to have a good day, and that I would miss her while she was at daycare, when all of a sudden she licks my face.

Did you catch that?

She licked my face.

I almost dropped her because I was so grossed out. I can deal with pretty much any gross thing a kid does, but the face licking was too much for me. To add insult to injury this is not the first time she has done this to me. It’s just been such a long time since she’s done it that I thought she was over it by now.

There were several other laughable moments this evening, but they involve far too much back story, so just trust me on that.

Cinderella was on tv this evening so my niece and I cuddled on the couch and watched together. I will assert that Cinderella is probably the most underrated Disney Princess movie. Perhaps I was feeling nostalgic, but, dang, I just love it!

Wonderful.

(PS. In other news, I finalized our family Christmas letter today, so that’s one big thing off of my to-list!)

December 4th

Today was wonderful because…

I got to catch up on daily, mundane life things with friends

My dad was offered a job (with hopefully more good news forthcoming on that front) after being unemployed for almost a year

My niece and I baked cookies, tried out new hairstyles, and did some crafting together

I made a phone call to get the ball rolling on some temporary employment which would help with the interview I have next week (eek! still freaking out about that) and would earn some steady income, which is always appreciated

I started writing and putting together our family Christmas card

Wonderful.

November 30th

Today was wonderful because…

I took a trip to the craft store!

We were in need of a tree skirt and outraged by the prices of store-bought options which weren’t really our style or were really poor quality. So, my mom and I bought black burlap, cut it in a circle, and trimmed it with tan burlap ribbon in a ripple along the bottom edge. There was a lot of hot glue involved, but I didn’t burn myself, so = success! We’re going to go back tomorrow for white felt to make snowflakes to go around the edge as well. It’s going to look fantastic, and matches our natural, woodsy, rustic tree really well.

My personal mission was to find something fun for our front door. In college I worked as a Community Advisor and I loved making door decorations for all of my residents. I think I honed in that passion and, rather than making 35 little decorations, I made 1 awesome one. I got a tin star in a fabulous shade of chartreuse-y green. Then I tied on three tin snowflakes. The chartreuse green, bold green, and bright red glittered snowflakes were gathered up on metallic gold ribbons and tied behind the star. I rigged up a hook and I think it will be a fun, bright, cheery addition to our house.

I also picked up a kids craft for my niece and I to make. I’m not sure who will be more excited to put it together: me or her.

She might be distracted by her elf though. We got her an Elf on the Shelf. I’m pretty excited to start this tradition with her, even though I find it incredibly creepy.

Successful crafting! It’s just so

Wonderful.

November 29th

Today was wonderful because…

I went to the library with my niece, we picked out more books than the 6 book limit imposed by her Grandma, came home, put on our jammies, and read the entire pile of books before dinner time.

My favorite book was Spots, Stripes, or Diamonds: A Book About Animal Patterns. I know, I know, super nerdy. However, we both learned some fun facts and she was telling us all about how a pineapple fish’s lower jawbone changes color from day to night, so I take that as a seal of approval. I’m fairly certain that her favorite book was the latest installment of Fancy Nancy.

I love reading!

Wonderful.

November 26th

Today was wonderful because…

My niece and I got to hang out together. Her regular daycare person was sick, so my niece stayed home (I guess that’s one advantage to not having regular daily work anymore) and the two of us got to do our favorite things: crafty projects!

Throughout the course of the day we made snowflakes out of tissue paper, colored a snowman coloring sheet (it was all in pieces so we could cut it out and assemble it too. perfect since we don’t have snow yet), painted with dot markers, and started a weaving project. We also got to watch some cartoons, play with lots of toys, and snuggle.

Painting with dot markers actually started out as a game. Even though my niece is 4 she’s really smart. (Scary smart sometimes. Yikes!) She’s great at counting, so we’re working on recognizing numbers. The game worked like this: Roll a dice (I had a travel “Sorry” game, so we just used the dice popper on that, much easier!), count how many dots were on the dice. Then, use one color of dot markers to stamp the corresponding number of dots on a piece of paper. The next person does the same. Then, repeat with the rest of the dot marker colors.

I was one proud Auntie tonight when we were having good night hugs. I told her I had a great day together and asked her what her favorite part was. She said it was the dot game. We’ll definitely play that again. Maybe with a pair of dice next time! She also has a set of counting cards that go up to 15 that we can work up to.

Wonderful.