Gingerbread Chef

Now that I have a real oven after 4 years, I've decided to venture out in the baking world a bit. I am not going to have my own show on the Food Network any time soon, but for this girl who didn't know how to make rice 10 years ago...I've made big improvements! :)

My favorite assistant was there to help make gingerbread cookies for the first time.

Camden was mesmerized by the electric mixer and tried to grab for the rolling pin a few times, but my little Bugs Bunny was content with his carrot. :)

Glamorous gift wrapping

Emma loves to wrap gifts. If I gave her a roll of scotch tape to play with she'd be entertained for hours. She had on all her jewelry yesterday afternoon and I told her she was the most glamorous gift wrapper I'd ever seen!

Meanwhile, Camden is mastering the art of belly crawling. He was bored with his toys in the living room and came into the dining room to help us out.

Big sister for hire

Emma felt like being extra helpful this evening and decided she would feed Camden his dinner. I don't know how much is actually in his belly right now, but Camden was laughing the whole time!

A man on a mission...

As we turned our calendars over to December, Chris was determined to get his annual holiday masterpiece completed this weekend. We all know how much Chris loves the Iowa Hawkeyes...well if there is something that rates right up there with his beloved black and gold, it's Christmas. His first holiday away from home 9 years ago, he decorated his apartment for Christmas at Halloween. Since we've been married I have to persuade him not to get the decorations up before Thanksgiving. We were in Seattle last weekend and Chris has been itching all week to get his lights up (after all, next weekend is the 5th Annual Kasparek House Lighting Party).

Armed with his new staple gun and his sketched blueprint of the house/yard he got to work yesterday morning (note the sunny sky...)

Camden cheered on Daddy by chewing on his sleeve. ;)

After getting most of the house decorated and commenting on the fact that he needed a taller ladder, he moved on to the pine trees as the snow began to fall...

And here he is 24 hours and about 6 inches of snow later finishing up the lights! Our neighbor let him borrow a taller ladder to finish.

Emma was there today to "help" Daddy :)

The teeth!

I FINALLY captured those shiny chompers on film!

Warming up...

After an exciting adventure playing out in the snow, Emma was ready to warm up with some hot chocolate (her new favorite treat)

First snow!

What started out as a sunny day turned into snow! Camden's first experience with snow got lots of smiles. :) Emma wouldn't slow down (so you just get to see an "action" shot of her) and thought making Frosty was wonderful!