Play dates in December: Posing at the Park and Sprinkles up the Nose

In early December, Cas and some of his friends spent the night at our family farm and we headed to Grammy and Brownie's.  Saturday morning, we met my best friend Amber and her three kids at a park near my parents' home.  Maya was posing away for the camera - 

The kids played hide and seek, freeze tag, climbed trees, but spent very little time on the actual playground equipment.  I think they spent more time walking, crawling and jumping along this light pole that had yet to be placed upright than they did on the slides, bridges and climbing structures of the park!

A week later, we met my friend Kelly at the Children's Museum.  I stayed upstairs in the tot spot with Kelly, Katelyn and Maya, while my mom spent the morning with Collin.  Concentrating while coloring -

And intensely pedaling a bike, as the faster the wheels turned, the more light bulbs illuminated.

At dinner with Amber and Kelly on Thursday night, we learned that all three of us had Saturday morning free.  So I volunteered my parents' house to make gingerbread houses.  Friday night after my mom went to a birthday party, she hit Walmart to pick up supplies for the party I had volunteered her to host - she's the best!

Part of the reason we needed to get together was that Kelly had made the girls matching monogrammed shirts and skirts, and we couldn't pass up the opportunity for a group photo.  Before the icing and sprinkles came out, we got the girls - Esmae (4), Maya (19 months), Katelyn (2.5 years) to pose for us -

Collin hopped in to the shot on the front porch swing -

 And then we kicked Collin out and the moms with their daughters smiled for the cameras -

Once the photos were over, the girls all switched to casual Christmas shirts (all of my kids' holiday gear comes from Amber or Kelly) and we decorated sugar cookies -

Esmae and Katelyn debated decorating over just eating the decorations!

Collin's sprinkles were thicker than the cookie!  Not sure how he managed to get sprinkles up his nose when he was supposed to be decorating and not eating -

Very proud of his loaded up cookies -

Feeling sick to our stomachs from the cookies, we moved into tree decoration mode, putting green icing on ice cream cones and then adding sprinkes.  Holden and Collin posing with their creations - 

After the decorating was complete, we tried to balance out the sugar with some pizza and then herded everyone outside to burn energy.  It was so great to watch them play together and such a joy that we're building two generations of friendships!