Christmas Eve 2009

Today we hung around the house, played in the snow, and had our annual "Baking Day" at home. Kelly Fox loaned us some clothes that included a snow suit that fits Grace perfectly, and we got her all bundled up to go outside. She loves putting on her boots, but she hates the cold on her face and the snow. She just stands there confused when we make snowballs. She really needs to see her brothers play tackle in the snow or we need to go sledding sometime so that she will understand that snow can be fun.

We really scaled back on the number of treats we baked this year, and Grace napped through much of the preparation, but it was really nice to feel like we had fully recovered from jet lag and returned to normal family life. Adam and Vince prepared their world (or at least family) famous pumpkin bread, Blaise made his yummy banana bread, Mark made oatmeal cookies, I made orange fudge. Then for the second round Adam made peanut butter cookies and Vince made molasses cookies. Well, actually, Adam baked all of Vince's cookies because he mixed up the batches and didn't realize he had the wrong dough until after the entire batch was baked.  Of course, Adam says that they turned out even better because he baked them all. All I know is that they are all delicious.

After the baking was finished, we got dressed up and headed to church for the 6:00 Chrismas Eve Service. We took the mechka (backpack) and were loaded up with water and saleties (pretzel sticks) just in case. Gracie did great, especially considering that she has never been in a service like this or anyplace where she is supposed to sit and be quiet. I even took her up front for the children's story reading, but all she really cared about was the peppermint stick that they gave her to eat. She loved it. During the service, she enjoyed listening to the music and tried to crawl back and forth across Mark and I to give pretzels to her brothers. All in all, it went great. She looked so cute in her red plaid dress, too. We told her today that tomorrow was "Chestita Koleda" and she said "Merry Christmas" to people when she was prompted. I'm sure she doesn't really understand, but when I told her "Chestita Koleda" she started singing a little song that had those words in it, so someone in Bulgaria has told her about Christmas before.

She was very proud of her "boli" today and wanted to show everyone the bruise on her arm. What a cutie! I was so surprised that she was very clingy at church tonight. She was so active and outgoing at the airport that I had anticipated that she would want to go to every woman she saw, but she didn't. She wanted Mommy and only Mommy to carry her all night. Maybe we are starting to bond.

A snow princess

My banana bread is amazing!

Nothing compares to our pumpkin bread.