I’ve been missing around here for the past couple of weeks! The holiday season has gotten so busy and that leaves little time to blog. After Christmas, I hope to be back here a bit more. And I will FINALLY be taking the time to write out the much requested post about how we manage financially on one income. I will admit that I’ve been avoiding that post just because I feel like there’s so much to say and my brain has a hard time processing things during pregnancy. But I know I need to get it done so I’ll just have to get over that.
Anyway, cookies! That’s what we’re going to focus on today. Last week we busted out our matching pajamas again and baked some Christmas cookies. It is definitely one of our favorite traditions, even though I spend hours prepping and cleaning up afterwards. It’s so worth it for the joy that it brings and the memories we make.
One of my favorite things this year is the fact that Desmond is old enough to participate. I was gushing over every single thing he did because he just looked so adorable. You could tell he was proud to be up there and doing everything with his big siblings. And the Santa hat made everything that much cuter!
It gets tricky to document while we’re making the cookies because we also want to be present and doing things along with them. But I also love to capture the memories on camera. So Don and I switch off with the camera a bit. And he has his GoPro out to record. But we do set the cameras down for a huge chunk to just help and enjoy our time together.
For the 2nd or 3rd year in a row, I ended up buying store bought cookie dough. With how much time and effort goes into all the other parts of making cookies, this pregnant mama has no desire to make homemade cookie dough! Especially since I don’t even really like sugar cookies and my kids don’t care because they will devour anything with sugar. We may eventually go back to making homemade dough when the kids are older. But for now, I’m aiming for less work and more fun.
In the past years, we’ve always put our icing into ziplock bags with a decorator’s tip. This usually resulted in exploding bags and icing messes all over our table and hands. I had been looking for these condiment dispensers for the past couple of years but could never find them at our dollar store. I finally found some at Walmart for 97 cents and they were worth every penny! I just mixed together powdered sugar, milk, vanilla extract, and almond extract until I got the right consistency (start with a small amount of milk and work your way up!) Then I divided up the icing into bowls to mix in the colors and used a funnel to fill all of the bottles.
The bottles were so much easier for the kids to use! Even Desmond was able to decorate on his own (he is 2.5 years old.) My only two complaints are the little caps that are attached (which we’ll probably cut off next year because they tended to drag through the parts that had already been iced) and the fact that they were more work to clean (as opposed to just throwing away the ziplock bags.) But even still, it was so worth it because they were much easier to use and less of a mess!
Clementine woke up from her nap as they were icing the cookies. She got one without icing and gave her approval.
And about the time that Desmond started dumping out sprinkles just so he could eat handfuls, we decided he should probably be done decorating.
They finished up and I asked if I could get a picture of all of them with the cookies. These pictures are probably my favorite of the bunch because of everyone’s personalities shining through. Without prompting, Desmond threw his arms around his brothers for the pictures–which was pretty much the sweetest thing ever.
Don tried to sneak Clementine into the picture. But she had eyes only for the cookies in front of her.
And of course their favorite part of the day–picking out which cookie they’re going to eat first!
And I’m ending with Desmond’s messy face because this picture makes me smile. Decorating cookies with kids is a lot of work. But it’s one of those things that I love to do every year because the kids enjoy it so much! And their joy brings me joy!
Our cookie decorating vlog will be published this Friday so I’ll update with a link to that then! I hope you’re having the best Christmas season!!
To see our cookie decorating from year’s past and to see all those adorable baby faces, you can see them here– 2016, 2015, and 2014!