I've definitely been a delinquent blogger of late, I would like to blame this on many factors

1. Being the "Mrs. Reverend Ashcroft" (weird) seems to have one or two demands around the holidays
2. I've been doing a ton of baking
3. I've been doing some Christmas present making
4. Esme's been teething and thus not sleeping, thus not allowing mom any baby free time
5. I've not felt like I've had much to say

So...here's what I have to share:

The other day I made these great peppermint sandwich cookies, another foray into the wild world cooking. I think they came out pretty good for the most part the two big things my insane days of baking taught me are double check for all the ingredients before you begin and roll the dough thinner than you think you need to. I think the second would have made these cookies even better...here's a pictoral of my adventures in peppermint sandwich cookies...

Bake the cookies (sugar cookies)

melt chocolate chips and add peppermint extract

sandwich the chocolate between two cookies

crush the candy canes (definitely a good stress reliever)

Ta-Da

My other big project, that I can share right now is that I decorated my house, I'm quite proud becuase I made the wreaths myself which is definitely a big accomplishment. My sister directed me to Martha Stewarts website for an idea of how to hang them on my front door. This was my favorite part as she says something along the lines of "use your u clips to..." then "nail three holes in the door..."
Not only do I have no clue what a u clip is I'm thinking my landlord would not be a fan of three holes nailed in my front door...needless to say mine is not quite as pretty as Martha Stewart's but I think I still did a pretty damn good job!

No blog post would be complete without a few pictures of Esme...here she is adoring and kissing the animals at the churches creche' fifty monopoly bucks if you can guess who dressed Esme this morning :)

Please Touch Museum

On Monday we went on a field trip to the Please Touch Museum.

It's been a fixture here in Philadelphia for a long time and just this year they relocated to a much bigger space in an old mansion.

Monday was Grandma's last day here so we wanted to end her visit with a bang and I think this was a great way to do it!

Esme was terrified of the mooing Cow in one area of the Museum

(I'm not sure why the eggs were under the cow...maybe that's why she was afraid?)
I mean really, what kind of cow lays eggs? Run away, run away!

Also not a huge fan of the slide...we may need to visit more parks

Her very favorite thing was the mirror area of the Alice in Wonderland section...she had to kiss the cute baby in every mirror and we kept having to chase her back to that section and retrieve her. :)

It must be really tough to be so cute that you can't leave yourself alone

Esme's other favorite things were...

The Carousel (she got two rides, one with mommy and daddy)

Driving the cars

We had a great time and I look forward to going back often as Esme gets older and can interact more with all the exhibits.

There were many wonderful things about Grandma's visit but one of my personal favorites is that she babysat one Friday so that Andrew and I could go out to dinner for my birthday, here we are looking like adults rather than parents: