Oh Tannenbaum

Yesterday was the munchikins annual cookie day with Grandma. We all had a great little breakfast, complete with maple syrup in the Grumble's hair and the Hubby and I watched gleefully as his parents drove off with our kids at 11am. A whole day to ourselves! What to do!?! How about stopping by to see our friends new baby, some final holiday shopping and a perfect hike.
We hiked up and around the reservoir in Northampton and Wow! That is one steep start! It settles out after a bit - I much prefer the switchbacks folks. A beautiful view to be had at the top, crisp , sweet air, little modern-life noise and some quiet time with my husband. We only saw one other person while we were out there, a guy walking his dogs. One of the dogs was a pitbull mix and the other was a corgi that I could not stop laughing at, those little legs! Too funny!
I saw these great yellow leaves shining out against all the other drab colors - I could not find any others like them, so beautiful.
We stopped at my Mom's on the way over to get the munchikins and picked up a large portion of their x-mas morning goodies, they've been hiding in Mom's garage. And drove down the mountain to the Hubby's childhood home for dinner.

The munchikins made these fantastic glitter ornaments, chocolate spoons and chocolate covered peppermint sticks for yummy flavored hot cocoa. They also made trail mix, one of Grandma's specialties, yummy no-bake peanutbutter balls and special doggie cookies for the special canines in the family to have treats at Christmas.

All in all it was a great day. I'm looking forward to getting some bits and pieces done in the evenings this week and hopefully I can blow through the decorating and final gift prep this weekend. Once the holidays settle out and life calms down a bit I hope to get back to blogging more often - thanks to all of you that stick around for me :)