Post Christmas

Wow, what a great holiday! Relaxing, for the most part. Cookies finally got baked, even if at the last minute. I forgot all about my traditional chocolate dipped biscotti until Annie showed up and reminded me, so I threw a batch together after Christmas dinner, improvising with dark chocolate chips instead of Bakers chocolate.

The kids made out quite well, I do believe. The playstands are gorgeous! One of the canopy supports cracked right at the end while we were putting on the silk, so we had to rubber band it together, but it looks beautiful anyway. I may end up cutting a new piece for that end. But what a beautiful thing to play with. Frances is quite taken with the setup. Her dolls and their three cradles are in there, and they lie down on bunks on the shelves. She's had tea parties with Olivia underneath and had made us lavish meals. Ollie has spent most of his time with his new computer games--for some, it doesn't take much. And they all seem to enjoy assembling and reassembling the gnome tree fort. Rutledge had a rather calm first Christms, by my estimation. Now on to finding places to put all the new things.