Holidays with Granny and Jiichan

So Xander and Venice cut out shapes for cookies. I knew I was going to be gone, so I had purchased sugar cookie dough. Well, it tastes a lot better than my recipe, as Venice quickly noticed when she nibbled on the bits and pieces...They made reindeer, trees, snowmen and stars....While I baked them, they played with the car set Xander had brought. Also Venice helped light some candles for atmosphere.

But.....this dough was different in another way and it puffed up and out...so the shapes of all but the tree were mangled. Fortunately the kids didn't care....After Casey and Teiya arrived we divided the cookies up and they all decorated them. Casey and Venice are most inventive and care about what they are doing. For Xander and Teiya, it is all about getting enuf icing on the cookie so they can put the jimmies on...and eat them. They worked hard on these misshapen creatures.

We also did the volcano as I had replenished my supply of food colors. We had 3 pretty good 'blows'.....the kids still seem pretty fascinated with the volcano....It can only do 3 blows at any one time...then I dump the stuff out that is in it and it is good to go for 3 more.

Teiya came to me in the middle of the day asking for rice (this is her secret code for wanting treats, specifically M&M's) I gave her a bowl which she downed and then asked with a smile for a treat. Since I didn't have any M&M's, I gave her a few chocolate chips which she was fine with.

Casey and Venice watched Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer....Venice handled the remote and fast forwarded thru the commercials.
I think that Venice and Xander watched the Grinch earlier....

Towards the end of the day, Venice and Casey were playing with all the small creatures, angels, and carolers that I have as decoration and making up their stories together....Teiya played the piana (note, every song she plays is in perfect rhythm altho the notes are not exactly right....She played and commanded Xander to dance....and he did.....round and round, foot up in the air, joyfully. For whatever reason, he and Teiya felt that the pretend groceries and plastic foods that we have had to be part of the dancing....Then Xander played and she danced. She leaped and spun and Xander plunked away. Later I read the Star Wars cutout book to Xander and Teiya. Xander was totally involved in the book and tried to see all the different parts. Teiya was mildly interested, but she did know the characters and Xander was just learning them. He went thru the book several times. Teiya got bored and went over to Casey and Venice and asked them if she could play with them. They incorporated her easily into their game of pretend. One of the pages of the book has a cutout of several groupings of various figures and they are numbered. So he would find number 1 and read who they were....the numbers were not normal numbers but he could figure out the 1 to 7 that was there and then he began counting them in spanish.

a nice day was had by all
Granny