preparations

I put off Christmas baking long enough. Finally on Wednesday, I searched for the ingredients for a couple recipes-buckeyes and sugar roll-out cookies. Demanding baking schedule, I know. We started with the buckeyes. I convinced the boys that it would be fun to help roll out the balls of peanut butter mixture. They all bought into it for a while, mostly so they could eat the leftover crumbles. We rolled the balls out before church, and then Andy and I dipped them in the chocolate later that evening.


You can't really tell from the picture below, but even Liam enjoyed walking around with the stirring spoon from the bowl. He's figured out pretty quick that some very yummy things are made on the table.



On Thursday, the boys and I made some sugar cookies. They enjoyed cutting out the cookies into the "Christmas" shapes that we had. Our assortment of cookie cutters included holiday cutters from our favorite kids' haircutting place (aptly named Cookie Cutters) and from a collection of Hannunkah cookie cutters (no lie). I think I even used a bear cut out from our extensive collection of play-doh cutters.


Everyone worked on the cookies at first. Marcus was the first one to stop. I can't blame him. I was done after the first set, too. But, the ball of dough seemed never-ending, and I kept rolling it out so Cale and Ewan could cut more shapes. Finally, I just took the rest and had the boys roll them into balls.

Look, here's everyone helping, including Liam. He really liked trying to eat the dough and play in the flour. What a dusty little boy he was when we were done!

I left Andy the job of having the boys decorate the cookies that night while I was at work. The industrious little elves worked hard to get them all done. We have eaten a fair share already, were able to save a few for Santa, and even took some over to the neighbors and their little girls. I hope that I can remember to continue to include the boys in baking. They really like to help and it is such a nice hands-on activity for them. We didn't get the the sugar cookies made with the cookie gun. Maybe next week. :-)