Teachingmommy: Cookies!!

Friday, December 12, 2008

Cookies!!

I love Christmas. I love how happy everyone is, I love how pretty everything is and I love how everyone is in a peaceful, giving spirit. People who don't understand could say that that's the way you should be all year long and that's true, but it doesn't happen that way. People are busy and tired and just don't have the energy to be full of goodwill all the time. It's understandable.

Anyway, I've been hosting a Cookie Exchange party for about 8 years now and every year seems to be more fun than the last. We really have a good time. We all bring cookies that we made to the party and we sit around and enjoy our wine or hot chocolate or beer or eggnog while we listen to music and chat and decorate sugar cookies. We have a blast and we all go home with plenty to share.

This year I was able to bring Maelin. She tried to decorate cookies but she was more interested in eating them, so I let her watch "Elmo" until Kevin came to pick her up. It was fun having her be part of the "big girls" for a while though!!

Here's a couple of pictures of our cookie party this year. We had a great turnout and so many yummy treats! I highly recommend organizing this for you and your friends if you get the chance. It's great holiday fun and a low-stress way to make sure we all take the time out of our busy lives to catch up and slow down and enjoy each other...which is another reason I love Christmas.

Cookies!!

Me and my girls...plus the love of my life (that's the little one in the blue in case you're wondering...) :-)

1 comment:

A Mama's Blog (Heather) said...: This always is so much fun- I wrote a blog post about it too.

Thanks for saying I am the love of your life- oh, I guess you meant the other girl in blue :-); December 12, 2008 at 10:54 PM

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Spanish Steps: Rome, Italy

Must Read Books & Great Authors

"A Tree Grows In Brooklyn" is a novel by Betty Smith first published in 1943. It relates the coming-of-age story of its main character, Francie Nolan, and her Irish-American family struggling against poverty in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York. The novel is set in the first and second decades of the 20th century. The book was an immense success, a nationwide best-seller that was distributed to servicemen overseas.
"Gone With the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell. This is my all-time favorite book and you MUST read this at least once in your lifetime. It has won the Pulitzer Prize, it is available in 31 different countries and it has been hearlded as "The Great Amercian Novel"
"My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult is a heart-wrenching novel about what it means to be a good parent, a good person and a good sister. Kate has had cancer since childhood and her younger sister Anna was concevied to be a perfect-match bone marrow donor for her. As Anna grows up, she struggles with how she and world will see the rights of her own body. This novel is the first book in years that had me crying. It was very well written and very enjoyable if you're in the mood for a tear-jerker.
"The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls is a memoir about a nomadic, deprived childhood told with the wonderment of a child who always wants to believe that Daddy will be a hero in the end and that Momma really does know best. You are enrapt reading about Walls and her siblings rifling through trash cans at school looking for food, doing the skedaddle in the middle of the night, or waiting for Dad to come home after another bender. It's a riveting story and a testament to Walls' desire to rise above a life that could have easily turned her into just another tragic headline. I really appreciated this story because of the very real probability that some of my students are living this very life.
One of my favorite authors (I have everything she's ever written) is Marian Keyes whose stories are set in Britian or Ireland. She is the internationally bestselling author of Watermelon (which is my favorite), Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married, Rachel's Holiday, The Last Chance Saloon, Angels, Sushi for Beginners, Under the Duvet, and her latest, The Other Side of the Story. Her books have touched readers around the world, and they are now published in 35 countries and in many different languages.