Christmas Cookies

Newborn or not, the season must go on, and that means Christmas cookies must get made. And since Grant cries about 23 hours a day, I have learned to do many things with one hand. Let's just add baking cut-out cookies to that list. Hey, look on the bright side--the little guy has very early partcipation in this tradition under his belt already! And it kept him from screaming for hours on end. But have you ever tried to roll cookie dough with one hand???

However, I did have a couple of eager helpers at the ready. Check out Calem's very cool apron that Gramma Martin made for him, complete with Thomas pockets and buttons. Isaac also has a matching one, his in red. They love the aprons and feel very important, indeed. Calem has always enjoyed helping me in the kitchen and is passionate about stirring, cutting, measuring and pouring. His job this day was to unwrap the sticks of butter, cut them into squares and scrape the sides of the mixer. He did an excellent job!

Then came the fun part. The rolling, cutting and decorating. Both boys had their own rolling pins and did a surprisingly good job rolling gently and evenly. I guess all that play-doh has paid off!
Would you trust a 4 year old and an almost-3 year old with open bowls of colored sugar? Everything in me didn't want to, but I took a deep breath and had my vacuum at the ready.

Long after Isaac's attention was diverted from cookies to choo-choos, Calem remained and meticulously decorated tray after tray of snowmen with scarves, christmas trees with garland, multicolored stars and striped candy-canes.

I could not have done it without Calem. And the pride he took as each tray went into the oven and came out again was evident. What a difference a year makes in attitude and capability. We had a lot of fun making Christmas cookies this year, and despite Grant and his surly disposition, we can at least drown our weariness in milk and heavily-sugared cookies for weeks to come. YUM!