The Christmas baking started early this year!  And I baked my heart out for weeks.  It was fun to package up goodies to send to friends and family that I know don't have time or interest in making Christmas goodies for themselves.

As always, The Prairie Kid wanted to help.  Especially if it involved:
- licking the beaters, spatula, bowl
- sprinkles
- frosting
- making a mess
- eating dough

Don't worry, goodie recipients, I carefully monitored hand-washing, finger licking, and spit control.  Your goodies were staunchly watched over.

I guess I didn't take pictures of the other treats this year.  But the list included: Buckeyes, almond shortbread men dipped in chocolate, shortbread stars dipped in peppermint chocolate, almond bark dipped pretzels, gingerbread cookies, and my grandma's Christmas cookies which are almond-coconut-cherry-walnut.

Christmas Parade

Our cousins Dave and Laura visited for Thanksgiving weekend.  We played a lot of cards, ate a lot of good food, and went to the Cody Christmas Parade.  It was my first lighted Christmas parade.  Honestly, it was a bit boring.  : (   Just in case a parade committee member reads my blog (ha!), our family would suggest letting the floats go back to back, even if the parade is over in 10-15 minutes.  There is no reason to hold them 1/4-1/2 a mile apart to draw out the length of the parade while we stand on the street freezing and bored.

 But we made the most of it and had fun watching The Prairie Kid and the cousins' dog, Daisy.

Gobble, Gobble, POW

Have you ever been to a turkey shoot? I went to my first one this year. The Lion's Club puts on a big one in Cody. Despite the name, there is not any shooting of an actual turkey. You can shoot guns, however. The Best Buddy was with us and they both took turns shooting pellet guns at a string that held a frozen turkey.  If you shot through the string and dropped the turkey you would win a turkey.  You had to buy tickets to get pellets.  There was also a roulette type game and some older folks kept giving our kiddos tickets and eventually The Prairie Kid won! 

So we brought home a turkey that we didn't even shoot from the turkey shoot. : )

Letting Go

I have had a long standing hard rule at our house: NO playing on the stairs.  Stairs scare a mom.  The thought of a tumbling body is too much for my heart.  But there comes a day when something happens; kids grow up and they all of the sudden can handle a forbidden territory.  Second grade comes and, I guess, with it comes a mom relinquishing a boundary for her child.  I have to admit, I ignored and avoided this for about the first hour or longer.  I just pretended it wasn't happening.  I did enjoy hearing the immense giggling and hooting and hollering but I didn't look.  And then I somehow relinquished my fear and I got out the camera. 

I am already consenting to the next sleepover where they will find their favorite play place on, gasp, the stair case!

Snow Much Fun

What do cowboys do when it snows?  Why tie a sled to the back of a 4-wheeler and make rounds in the yard, of course!  And what do cowgirls do?  Stay warm inside except to sneak out onto the deck and snap a few pictures!

Veteran Escort

Every Veteran's Day there is a wonderful program that The Prairie Kid's school puts on for the community.  It is the trademark program of his school and it is amazing.  This year The Prairie Kid was selected to be one of the escorts for guests.

Our attempt at having someone take a family photo ; )