clay day

I spent part of last night and this morning making some clay jewelry. I've seen so many things online and on etsy that are so cute, so I thought I would attempt to make them out of clay (in most cases the original are metal).

 This is our new Christmas tree ornament for this year.

 These didn't quite turn out. They are suppose have smoother flat edges like a geometric bead.

 I saw this on etsy (it is not my idea) it was made out of metal so I though I would make one out of clay.

 I found a little tutorial on making a clay owl.

 I used some fondant stamps that came with Aubrey's easy bake set - it worked well. She uses it for playdough now, so I though why not.

 I love acorns. This one actually looks better in person.

 Aubrey and Jared's initials (also Aubrey's initials of her first and middle name).

 Fingerprints: mine and Aubrey's

 This is a bad photo. This idea I also found on etsy and is made out of metal.

 geometric triangles.

Aubrey skating

ice skating

Last Thursday night after Jared got home from work, we went to the Seattle Center and went ice skating. It was Aubrey's first time and she was very excited to go!

 These might be the tiniest skates I've ever seen!

 She used the walker at first, but Jared found it easier just to hold her hands.

 I skated too, but I forgot just how much skates hurt my feet. My arches and bottoms of me feet instantly hurt so bad I could hardly stand!

 This is outside the entrance to the Space Needle.

We watched the fountain in the cold for a long time - Aubrey loved it. It is in sync with music playing (like the Bellagio Hotel fountain in Vegas) so it's entertaining to watch. See the Christmas tree on top of the Space Needle?

Baking

 

This last week I did a bit of baking. I tried making these chocolate pretzels from Martha Stewart recipe and they looked ok, but they didn't taste great! They weren't sweet at all and dry. Oh well.

 

The regular Christmas cookie

 

Aubrey looks a bit like a wild thing here!

Peanut butter drops. I like these because there's only 3 ingredients and no flour - so simple! 

Then I packaged some up and Aubrey and I delivered them to the 5 other neighbours in our building.

Stuffers

 

Jared got me some cool stuffers, here's a couple: Above is a camera shaped pencil sharpener and below is a decal for the laptop. It's the dial of a canon camera.

Christmas morning

If you listen carefully she says there's a holly cane in the stocking. I don't know where you she got that from, but she calls candy canes - holly canes!

Christmas Day

 Aubrey woke up 2 or 3 times during the night with bad dreams. Once she said that a big brown wolf was eating her nose and face! At 6am she came into bed with us and we couldn't get her to go back to sleep so we all got up. This was her face when she saw the tree.

 Opening stockings.

 Laying on her huge bear.

 Helping dad open his stocking. I don't know why he insists on wearing his woman's ugly christmas sweater. I didn't even know he still had it or where he's been hiding it!

 Putting her ironing board to use!

 We had the kitchen against the wall with a blanket on it so she could open it last.

 The aftermath

 The little shopping cart she got came with some food she has already placed in her fridge.

 After church we snapped a quick photo

 Sitting down for dinner.

 Our roast beef, roasted veggies, mashed potatoes and yorkshire pudding.

We had sooo much bread left over from our fondue party so I decided to make a desert out of it. I found this recipe for Bananas foster bread pudding. I only had a couple of bananas and a little whipping cream left over so I just used milk instead and then poured the leftover melted chocolate also from the fondue party over the top and baked it. It was so good and I was happy to be able to use up so many of our left overs!

Christmas Eve

Today was a beautiful winter day. We had no plans so we spent the day lounging, making some crafts and in the early evening we went to the park up the hill from us because the sky was so clear and Mt. Rainier was so clear.

Then we came home and made a fire had some dinner. Aubrey opened two presents.

 Some Christmas pajamas

 and a new ornament.

 Dancing in her new pj's

 Writing the letter to Santa with milk and cookies

 She's finally in bed and we can bring everything out.

 She's pretty spoiled this year! Even a co-worker of Jared's gave her this huge teddy bear!