on the third day of christmas break, my true love gave to me. . .

. . . football, caroling at a nursing home, and cookies cookies cookies.

We spent the morning running errands together and then played at the park a bit, working on Ethan's bike riding and my horrible football-throwing skills! Can I help it if I dodge every ball that comes my way? Those suckers hurt when they slam into your fingers! Or onto your bare forearms? Youch! I'm not built for contact sports!

We then joined a dozen other families from our ward and visited an old folks home nearby, to bring some gifts, goodies, and Christmas cheer. We sang and talked and Sean played a few songs on his clarinet. (He did great! I was so proud of him!) This truly needs to be a staple for us at Christmas--it's the third year in a row we've done it and we always feel so good spreading some Christ-like love this special time of year!

And since there are just not enough cookies around our house (every day this past week we've gotten at least one or two new goody plates from friends and neighbors) I decided to cook two new batches of cookies to hand out to my kids' friends, Dan's home teaching families, and oh yeah, it'd be nice if we got to eat some of them ourselves, right? I tried out a new recipe that uses butterscotch chips along with the chocolate chips and oatmeal. YUMMMM.

How are you keeping busy this Christmas time?