Joyful Impressions: Week 3

We’re making more memories over at chez moi.  Tons of fun, lots of friends, and very yummy…. you know, the best kinds of memories!

EJ has a little group of friends who happen to be mostly girls.  And we’ve had them over at other holidays to decorate cookies together… I would love for this to be a favorite memory for all of them – “Hey, remember when we were kids, and crazy Ol’ Mrs. Leigh used to have us over to pour gobs and gobs of sugar on sugar-frosted sugar cookies?  Good times!”

And I do believe that a good time was had by all!

Not all of EJ’s little girl-friends were able to make it, and his one best guy-friend was kept at home by a sick mommy (we hope you feel better, Mrs. Evans!).

But the crew that gathered did enough decorating for them all.  We had an expert frost-er, a patient decorator, and the kid who dumped sugar and sprinkles very liberally over everything he saw.  Guess which one was my kid. 

And you can’t tell from the pictures, but more cookies really were decorated than eaten.

I wish I had a wonderful new recipe for sugar cookies to share with you… I really do.  But the 3-day ordeal that ended in me running to the store at 6:30 in the morning to purchase a mix to bake up the cookies we actually decorated left me with no recipe to share.  I’d actually be able to start a new blog (not just a post – a whole blog!) with only the bloopers and outtakes that this activity alone provided me.

But look at their masterful creations…  this just screams Christmas-time to me (it also screams sugar-high… look at how thick the sugar sprinkles are encrusted on those cookies!  You know those are going to give you a good crunch when you bite in!).

I hope that my boys will always treasure these times together, laughing and spending time in fellowship with family and friends.

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Want to join in our Joyful Impressions? Just post a fun Christmas-y tradition, craft, recipe or activity on your blog. After posting, just click the Mr. Linky below to add the link to your post (not the link to your blog, but to your actual post).  And just to be nice, link back to this post, so others can participate, too!

When you’re done, come back and look at the other posts and find some more fun stuff to do with your kids!

Joyful Impressions: Week 1

Welcome to our month of Joyful Impressions!

So I had a bit of an unintentional break from things last week – no blogging, no letters, no verses… but I’m back in the swing of things!  My week off did give me a chance to think about some of the special things I’m going to do with EJ.  I also thought about what was happening last year at this time… and guess what happened a year ago this month?  I met Amanda!!!

I promise I will get back to our activity this week, but I wanted to give you a bit of background.  Amanda and I were paired up during a swap, and I tell you, she completely spoiled me!  She took so much of my likes into account and sent me the perfect swap package – it helped that we have a lot in common (Atlanta girls who love Jesus and HCJr UNITE!).  And as you know, Lydia and EJ are very close in age – 2 weeks apart, in fact.  Lydia slipped a couple special things into the swap package for EJ, which I discovered anew as I pulled them out with our Christmas decorations.

As I thought about this past year of knowing Amanda and everything that has developed (a long-distance friendship and this blog!), I thought about how important it is to let the people we care about know how important they are in our lives.  The Christmas season just seems to make doing that easier…

So EJ and I wrote a Letter to Lydiafor our Joyful Impressions and Letter L activity this week.  He doesn’t know how much Lydia’s momma means to me, but one day he’ll know… and I can’t wait for them (Lydia and EJ) to meet one day!

I think this was EJ telling me, “No!  Don’t take a picture of me, Momma!”  Got to love it.

We sat down with some magazines and picked out pictures and words that start with the letter L.  I also cut out some L’s by themselves, just for good measure.  EJ got out his trusty glue stick and started gluing, and then “wrote” a little letter to Lydia.  I couldn’t quite read what he wrote, and he wouldn’t tell me… hopefully Lydia will know what it all means.  I wrote a little something as a translation, but again, he wouldn’t tell me if I got it right.

Amanda, don’t let Lydia read this.

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Would you like to share your fun Christmas craft, tradition, recipe or activity with us? Well, link up with today’s Joyful Impressions Carnival!Just write a post on your own blog about a great Christmas/holiday/winter activity.  Make sure this idea is kid-friendly and ideally shows your kids the truth about the season or impresses God’s Word on their hearts.

After posting, just click the Mr. Linky below to add the link to your post. (Not the link to your blog, but to your actual post.) And just to be nice, link back to this post, so others can participate, too!

Then come back and look at the other posts and find some fun stuff to do with your kids!

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