Elena and Malea Visit -- Days 10 & 11

7th -  Grandpa is working from home today and has set up shop in the living room.  We must be quiet little angels during the conference calls and it is still blessed cold outside.  That's okay though as we have some fun things to do today but right now my tummy is growling and Malea is definitely interested in some breakfast.  What shall we make?  Fruit salad - yummy yummy.

After breakfast, I get Malea dressed and she asks for the Wiggles so she is set up in the den with her computer.  Grandpa is in the living room with his work one, and I find Miss Elena in the office on Grandpa's other one.  Apparently we are having a techie moment.  Oh --- and in case Mom is wondering, if we don't go somewhere --- getting Elena to get dressed just doesn't happen.  That's why she appears quite often in this nightgown (it DID get washed several times).

I get a bit of work accomplished and then between conference calls, gather the girls and the ingredients to make the sugar cookie dough.  Kitchen time is the BEST!  Up goes the hair, hands get washed, aprons on -- we are ready.  Taking turns with each ingredient allows little hands to share the work and not feel left out.

Once the dough is made, it must be sampled -- correct?  It's not worth making cookies if you don't get to clean the beaters and spoons afterwards.  (If that bothers anyone -- don't say anything, it won't change what we do and have always done.)  Counters are meant to be sat on, stools to stand on, and tongues to clean with.

The dough has to chill until tomorrow so on to our next project.  I had someone tag me in a post on Pinterest that showed two mugs with "Lady" and "Mister" written on them and the directions to make a set for myself.  What fun.  Although I didn't immediately think of doing something for myself, my grands definitely came to mind.  Before the girls got here, I picked up a couple of bowls for them to work on as a project and today is the perfect day to have a little Sharpie fun.  Sharing is a requirement along with keeping our aprons on, but other than that I just let them loose.

The patience that they each show - yes even Malea truly takes her time -- while working on these is great.

It is so fun to watch their minds at work and how they make it all happen.  Once they are finished with their artwork, into the oven it goes to bake the designs in.  I LOVE them.  (Gammy takes the time to put their names and ages on the back -- smart Gammy.)

Elena and I sneak away to shop for fabric as she wants to make a skirt, leaving Grandpa and Malea for some time together.  Everyone is happy and Elena finds fabric that she loves and it's even on the sale table --- double bonus.  Now to get is washed and ready to cut.

8th -  While at the fabric store last night, Elena found some stickers and decides to hang out in bed for awhile playing with them.  However, as soon as she is up it is, "May I have a grapefruit please?"  Seriously -- who is going to turn that down?  Now, what shall we do today --- oh I know -- let's bake those cookies.  That will be wonderfully fun and messy.  Hair up, hands washed, aprons on --- time to roll out dough.

I roll out the first batch since it is cold and they get started cutting out their shapes.  We are doing "winter" cookies so Elena has chosen a snowflake and Malea picked out a star.  They each have a stool and the card table works as the perfect height.

Now that the dough has warmed up, Elena wants to roll too, so she takes her ball of dough and gets to work. Malea is trying oh so hard to cut out her cookie while her sister rolls the dough.  It's pretty funny.  Next is Malea's turn.  Even though you can't see her face here --- oh man she is concentrating.  Here are some of the baked cookies.

Now it is time to decorate them.  I make some blue icing for the snowflakes and yellow for the stars.  While Elena quickly gets to work decorating, Malea, on the other hand choose to eat her first cookie.  Well okay -- that works too.

I find some fun sprinkles and colored sugar (which Malea promptly POURS on her cookies) and let the girls go to decorate.

Is this a happy face or what?

And voila -- their finished product.  (Yes, Gammy helped with one - but only one.)

After the kitchen is restored, I tell the girls that Mommy would like some pretty Christmas pictures so we put dresses on and attempt to have a photo session with Gammy behind the camera.  Grandpa is at work and we are running out of days to do this.  Enjoy a small sample of what I took until Malea was finished being nice --- and just so you know -- that was about 5 minutes in.

Yep --- it's starting already.

This is what "show me your smile" gets.

And we are done - hopefully Grandpa can work some magic on a few of them.  It is  nap time and Miss Elena needs to spend an afternoon in "school" getting some of her work caught up on.  I bet all kindergartners would like a desk like this.