Christmas Firsts

We have had a weekend of firsts for the girls. Yesterday we made our Christmas cutout cookies. Kevin and Chloe helped me roll them out and bake them while Julia napped. Shhh... we also frosted a few while she napped. After supper, we let Julia help out with pouring the sprinkles on the tops of some of the cookies (because that's as complicated as I get -- white frosting with colored sprinkles dumped on the top). She was a bit hesitant at first:



But after watching Daddy, an "I can do that" look flashed briefly on her face:

Once he took the cookie away to get a new one, she felt it was her obligation to taste test the sprinkles:

Let's give that girl a clean spoon. Aha, I think we've got the idea now: (And if you're really bored, you can bounce back and forth between the next two pictures to see the decorating in action!)

Chloe wanted to show off her decorating skills also:

And what is Julia up to?

...apparently scraping all of the frosting that dripped off the cookie. Delicious!

Chloe had her "first" today. This was her first Christmas program at church! Doesn't she look like such a proud little angel?

She had three lines to say -- a total of 12 words. And if you know Chloe at all, you've probably already guessed that she didn't say even one of them. Not surprising, she didn't say them in practice either. You should have heard her saying them at home though!

Although she didn't talk, she was full of smiles throughout the songs and really sang her heart out. I could see her singing nearly every word. And for the phrases I heard her singing loudly and quite enthusiastically, well, I'm convinced that no heavenly chorus of angels could ever sound so sweet... but maybe I'm biased.