"What's that?" I asked her.
"Christmas Evening."
"It's Christmas Eve, sweetie," I explained.
"Yep," she said. "Let's go look at the snow."
"Um, I don't know that it snowed last night, dear," I told her as I glanced out my bedroom window.
"It had to snow, mama. It's Christmas Evening, and it has to snow so that Santa can come," she explained.
So began a long conversation about how it doesn't have to snow for Santa to come, and some places get a lot of snow, and some places never get snow, but it is Christmas Eve just the same.
She was disappointed.
So, I couldn't even be angry when, just as predicted, the precipitation began to fall around 10:00 am. First, we got little ice balls the size of, say, nonpareils. (Snow? Sleet? Hail?) My Dad and I decided to take one last trip to the store to pick up some necessities in case the weather worsened.
And, nothing says Christmas Eve like a Starbucks Caramel Apple Spice, so we had some of those, too!
Once we got home, Little A was ready for her nap and Sassy was raring to make treats for Santa. We had our minds set on making Santa moon cookies, what Tyler's family calls pecan sandies.
Then, earlier in the week, I received a holiday gift from one of my PAT families. They were so sweet and explained that they tried to choose something I could enjoy doing with my girls, and they gave us a Wilton cupcake stand. Sassy almost died when she saw it. In case you don't recall, she completely ♥'s all things cupcake. Remember, she even had a cupcake birthday party last year.
So, as soon as her little eyes grazed the brand new cupcake stand, cupcakes it was for dear Santa!
We made Holiday Funfetti cupcakes with Holiday frosting.
Mommy and Sassy began the project. This was no coincidence... normally I would have taken my rightful place behind the camera, and Daddy and Sassy would have been to work. But, we decided that Mommy should participate, and so it was.
Sassy was a GREAT helper:
She helped Daddy scoop and pour:
She even snuck a taste after Mom and Dad told her not to (we've been extra cautious since the cookie dough E. coli outbreak a few months back)... hopefully, Santa wasn't paying attention to her blatant disregard of the rules:
While the cupcakes were cooling, Sassy enjoyed some quiet time and Tyler, my Dad, and I watched Four Christmases in the basement. I found it to be enjoyable... I really like Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon. Having said that, I am usually one to enjoy a cheesy Christmas movie. Whatever.
After quiet time, Tyler and Sassy frosted the cupcakes. The results were mouth-watering:
Sassy was proud:
Very proud:
And, just like that, we at the SPH were ready for Santa's arrival:
It is our family tradition to go out for a nice dinner every Christmas Eve. We had planned on heading up to a middle-of-the-road steakhouse in Wichita, but the outdoors were blustery, the roads piled with ice and snow, so we decided to stay closer to home.
Darn.
There just happens to be a delicious higher-end Italian restaurant right in our little town called Luciano's. So, we decided to go there. And, we decided to get dressed up a little bit. This, of course, was the highlight of Sassy's evening...
Little A looked adorable, too, in her little red & green plaid dress and hair pretty:
By some sort of Christmas miracle, I managed to get a picture of both girls in front of the tree... looking at me!
Which was quite a surprise, since Little A kept busy being her ornery little self:
Once we arrived at Luciano's, we enjoyed delicious calamari and sauteed mozzarella to start. The girls and I shared a quattro formaggi salad in a parmesan crisp bowl, a formaggi cream pasta with asparagus, and cotoletta de maiale, the most delicious pork in a mushroom cream sauce. Oh. My. Word. It was good!
Sassy could barely sit still in her seat, she was so excited to get home and open gifts from Mom and Dad. She spent half of dinner in front of the window, amazed at the snowfall outside, and playing I-Spy for Santa and his reindeer in the night sky:
We tried to carry her to the car so that she wouldn't slip or get snow in her dress shoes, but all she wanted was for us to let her crunch her little feet in the new fallen snow. Just precious. She is my little snow princess, after all...
We enjoyed the short, quiet car ride home, filled with anticipation for what was to come...
To be continued...
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