It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Over the weekend, I got to spend a ton of time with Haley. Y'all. The girl just melts my heart!  Here are some pics from our recent adventures. 

Her birthday gift:  matching friendship bracelets

Haley and her sister, Courtney, at a Christmas party.

Thank you to SAE and UT for hosting a wonderful Christmas party for the kids from the Big Brother program. 

The kids were all so blessed by all of the donations. I've never see a kid so pumped about a hula hoop in my life!

Haley wrote a note to Brandon and myself. She is so sweet!  "To: Brandon My new big brother From: Haley"  She automatically has added him as her brother. Made my heart melt some more. 

Visit to Chickfila

Spur-of-the-moment trip to Skatetown!

Skatetown may have been one of our more hilarious adventures yet. Partly because neither of us had been on skates in awhile, so you can imagine how funny THAT was. Add in the fact that she kept grabbing onto me, well, let's just say that I got my exercise for the day!  I know I've said this before, but I will say it again. I am so blessed to have grown up in a home where I was priviliged enough to do things often with my family. We watched movies together, baked cookies, and I even used to force my brothers to play dress up. Most of all, my parents taught me to love Christ. I may not be Haley's parent, but I know I've become a role model in her life. I'm making it a goal to show her Christ often. She recently told me she knew about the story of the candy cane; that it is an upside down J and what the red and white colors mean. It just reminded me how impressionable kids are. I hope that Haley always sees the good in me and that I can share Christ with her. 

Sunday I worked Deaf Awareness Day at Dollywood. It was frigid, but always fun!

I'm hoping to take Haley to Dollywood to see the lights in a few weeks with one of the free tickets we got for volunteering. 

Now, drumroll please.....

We bought our Christmas tree tonight!!!  I'm so pumped. We bought locally and part of the profits went to the Big Brother program. And there was a two story tall Santa there!!!!  Don't believe me?

It was fabulous!  Kind of dark, but you can see me down there. 

Here's Brandon hauling the thing to the car. He's such a burly manly man. I love it. 

Tonight I baked some (like 75!) cookies for our cookie exchange at work this week. It's my grandmother's recipe. She made these yummy cookies for my wedding and so I thought I'd try my hand at them. I think they turned out pretty good!  

For all you holiday bakers, here's the recipe. 

Grandma Jo's Holiday Cookies

Ingredients:

1c butter

1/3c powdered sugar 

2 tsp vanilla

2 tsp water

2c flour

1/2c confectioner's sugar

Directions:

1. Cream butter and powdered sugar. Stir in vanilla and water. Add flour. Cover and chill 3 hours. 

2. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Roll into balls and bake 15-20 minutes. (Or roll them out and use cookie cutters.)

3. Allow to cool on wire racks until barely warm. Roll in comfectioner's sugar. 

Tonight reminded me of being a kid and baking with my mom. We made cookies ALL THE TIME growing up. The cookie cutters I used tonight were actually my great great grandmother's. I love family heirlooms. Mom and I used to bake while my brothers ran around the house being hooligans and stopping in to sample the goods every chance they could.  I'm looking forward to one of these days when we have our own kiddos to bake cookies and decorate Christmas trees with. Until then, we'll just savor our time with each other. That's what life is about isn't it?  Enjoying the little things.