Dress-up at Grammy's

 Allison asked Grammy where her dress-up stuff was on one of our first mornings in Alaska.  My Mom dug up some of my Grammy Kroon's costume jewelry and clothes.  Allison & Grammy had a great time getting her all fancied up - clip-on earrings included.  Mark and I were both excited that the earrings didn't stay on long and she wouldn't try on any more because they hurt.  We'll keep her thinking earrings hurt for as long as possible!

Christmas Mug

I saw winter holiday decorate-your-own mug kits at Starbucks this December and knew Allison would love to make one.  She sat down one Sunday evening and decorated her mug using every last sticker provided in the kit.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised about that knowing how much she loves stickers.  There was a little bit of coloring involved too, and she insisted I write her name on the back of the paper (where you can't see it!)  She loves drinking hot chocolate out of her own special mug.

Family Games

 We've started playing games together as a family occasionally in the evenings.  We recently tried Yahtzee even though the recommended age was well beyond Allison's years.  She did enjoy shaking rolling the dice and was set to beat both Mark and I until she got bored and started cutting up her Yahtzee card!  I won't complain, I ended up winning that way!

Gingerbread Houses

 Allison and her friend, Annie, were able to decorate gingerbread houses together this December.  They loved wearing their fancy dress-up clothes and getting to eat lots of candy.

Christmas Tree 2012

 We went to a local tree farm to cut down a tree this year.  However, Mark has a definite preference for noble fir trees and all of the nobles were pre-cut so it was much simpler than we planned.  We came home with our tree in less than a half hour.

 Allison was very excited to decorate the tree this year.  She couldn't wait for Mark to bring it in and get it set up.  She opened her 2012 ornament - a girl holding her doll - perfect for our little doll/baby loving girl.

And here she is with her whole stash of ornaments.....I think I need to get off the Precious Moments kick next year to add some more variety!

Brought to You by the Letter 'D'

'D' Stand for...

 DELICIOUS!

 (Allison cut the magazine picture out herself, she loved it!)

DONUTS!!

 And DOG MASKS

We have to admit - the 'D' letter is one of our favorites!  Allison loved making homemade donuts, it was quite the adventure and I don't know that it will be repeated anytime soon but it was fun to try!

Housekeeping

Hello all of you faithful blog checkers out there.  I have run out of photo storage space.  I've decided I'm going to 'clean up' the blog a bit rather than purchase more storage.....I do have a collection of posts coming as soon as the blog is cleaned up enough.  Sorry for the delay!