Some photos of Nora and our little Princess.......

Our little Princess was 11 months old on December 12th.  Just look at her eyes, they are stunning.  I do not refer to our little Princess by her given name on my blog at her parents request.

 Dd is taking slightly different monthly photos of Nora.  She is laying her on different coloured material backgrounds for her photos.  Here is the newborn one, take notice of the outfit she is wearing.

Here she is at her month old photo, again wearing the same outfit; yes she is growing.  Can you believe her first month has already passed?

 Here she is with her favourite toy.

Life is so flipping busy at the moment and will be until the end of January.  So I won't be posting too much.  I am usually around on Facebook; let me know if you want to be friends on there.

It's the cookie exchange party on Friday, so will take lots of photos of the babies then. 

Boxing Day shopping.....

we always go and do a bit of Boxing Day shopping to take advantage of the sales.  However over the years we do less and less and this year I only wanted to visit a couple of stores.  Number one on the list was Michael's,  I picked up some yarn for scarves and some dish clothes.  The yarn for the scarves after the coupons was well under $5 each, and will make great gifts for Christmas and birthdays.

I picked up 8 Christmas cakes tins for the 2013 Cookie Swap party we are hosting next year.  Paid just over $1 each for them:

Went to Canadian Tire and picked up a new snow shovel, a tool thingy for dh and two new frying pans for me.  Spent over $60, so we got a $15 gift card to spend before the end of January.

Went to Mark's Work Wearhouse and got a new pair of slippers each, a pair of fingerless gloves for dh and some ear plugs, as we were 3 cents short of $50, and I had a $10 off coupon when you spend $50.

I think I may pop up to Barrie on Friday and check out the mall to see what's on sale there.  I couldn't be bothered to fight the crowds on Wednesday, although it wasn't too bad.  I also want to pop back into Michael's for a couple of things that would be great gifts for the cookie swap party.

Do you shop the Boxing Day sales?

Christmas Cookie Exchange Party (photo heavy)

Went to my first ever Christmas Cookie Exchange party at "K's" (dd best friend) house and we had the best time ever.  There were eight of us and it was a great mix of people.  "K" of course went above and beyond with her preparation of the party and she deserves a big pat on her back for all the hard work she put in and as dd says it's all in the details!!!

This is the food table with  "snacks" on it to nibble on, there was more added to it later on!!!  The banner was made using a Cricut.

In the above photo you can see something at the top on the wall and are wondering what it is?  Well "K" wrapped her picture up to look like a present, so it looked more Christmassy.  I rolled my eyes at that one!

Who thought that was a great idea?

This was the hot chocolate station.  It included chocolate dipped marshmallows, mini marshmallows, and chocolate dipped spoons, all to go in the mug of hot chocolate.  I forgot to ask how she made the hot chocolate, it was so good.

"K" even made little tags with our initials on it, to go on our mugs/glasses:

She had a beautiful bunch of flowers, and the cranberries in the water was a lovely touch I thought:

"K" made these cake pops which looked like reindeer and they were really yummy.  Underneath them you can see some of the iced sugar and gingerbread cookies she made as well, they were so good.

This is a photo of dd and "R" wrapping up everyone's cookies:

These are the boxes of cookies we were presented with:

This is what was in the boxes of cookies:

Attached to the top of the cookie tins was a recipe book with all the cookie recipes in it:

We also got a take home gift of a cookie cutter with this label on it:

and this gorgeous tea towel, which you can find at Crate and Barrel:

The cookies that were made were:

Shortbread Cookies

Reindeer Cookies

Almond Chai Cookies

Christmas Cherry Chews

Cheesecake Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

Snickerdoodles

Cranberry Vanilla Chip Cookies

Big Soft Ginger Cookies (recipe on prior day's post)

100 Good Cookies (recipe on prior day's post)

If there is no direct link to the recipe, I will add that recipe in the next day or two.  Those Christmas Cherry Chews are to die for!!

So hand's up who wants an invite to next years cookie exchange?   Dd, "R" and I have offered to host it at our house next year.  Same folks just different venue!!!  I told dd and "R" that they can do the Martha Stewart stuff and I'll do the food!!!

If "K" is reading this post you deserve all the praise from all the comments as you put a lot of effort into this and it showed.

*** We each made 3 dozen cookies and we didn't bring any of the ones home that we actually made.***