My Day With Amelia

We are coming up on a very fun weekend full of great activities, but we are booked nearly solid between now and Sunday evening.  Amelia is an awesome kid, but let's face it, she's my temperamental girl.  Tonight the girls are going to an activity at Ava's aftercare program that involves pizza and Jolly Holiday Lights while John and I attend a holiday party. Tomorrow she has dance class (8:45am) a friend's birthday party (10:00am-1:00pm) and then we are going out for dinner and to see the Nutcracker tomorrow night.  As awesome as all of that is, wow!

Facing down this weekend I decided Amelia and I needed a day at home together to rest and regroup.  We woke up this morning to a light dusting of snow.  Amelia was beyond thrilled.  After John and Ava headed out, she jumped into her snow clothes and out into the back yard to make tracks in the snow and some snow angels....

Then we packed up and headed out to the gym.  On our way we dropped Orbit off at the groomer for his first puppy spa experience.  He was getting a bit stinky-puppy (Ava said he smelled like nachos) so it was time. He had a bath, a massage, a blow dry, a manicure and pedicure plus a little bow for extra beauty.  He seems to know he's snazzy! And all for $15. 

Amelia and I ran some errands including picking up items to make chocolate pixie cookies, which Williams Sonoma thinks are chocolate crinkles, but I know better. This is a particularly good recipe - the cookies almost taste like brownies.

Amelia knows licking the beater is the very best part....

My big helper, rolling the cookies into little balls....

And dunking them into the powdered sugar...

The face I saw when I said no to the moon sand.  The evil, evil moon sand that gets EVERYWHERE! I just didn't feel like cleaning it up today. Note Orbit, in the background, giving me almost exactly the same expression!