watch out betty crocker

we hope this finds everyone immersed in the true spirit of the season: faith, hope and love.

our major undertaking this holiday season was cookie baking, which was a holiday ritual for mn growing up, but i don't recall making and decorating sugar cookies as a child. (mom will correct me if i'm wrong.)

we mixed and we stirred and we rolled and we used star-shaped cookie cutters and we baked and we frosted and we sprinkled. it was so much fun! we decided it will be our new holiday tradition. here's how they looked:





and here's how we looked after making them:



even though we won't be spending time with family for the holidays, we're surrounded by lots of love. we also decorated our apartment by hanging ornaments in our windows and displaying other christmasy decor. since kandinsky likes to chew on the needles and play with the ornaments, we decided against getting a tree this year. here's the view:



we're excited to venture to seattle for a couple of days to see our friend vivi, who we haven't seen since january, and we're looking forward to laughing, talking, sipping wine and enjoying time spent with a wonderful friend. we'll also be partaking in one of our favorite seattle pastimes: eating. we'll visit a chinese restaurant we love called yea's wok (we always say "YEA!" when it's time for yea's), two (yes, two) donut places and an incredible chowdah place near pike place market. guess we'll be spending extra time at the gym next week, but it's totally worth it.

as always, we're both doing great and making sure we're as good to each other as we can possibly be. we hope you and yours are enjoying every single second of your lives and remembering to live by the golden rule.

we love and miss y'all very much!