Christmas Baking

We did some cut-out cookies this morning.  I said to Alice, "HEY!  You wanna help me bake some cookies?"  Oh yes.  She did.  "Yes!  Cookies!  Alice eat cookies!  Alice help!  Alice roll!"  The guys are much more go-with-the-flow when it comes to helping out.  They sort of fade in and out and do what they feel like, while chanting COOKIE! COOKIE!  Not so much like Cookie Monster, more like Animal from the Muppets.  The girls tend to want to be right there the whole time and stick their noses in every part of the process.

So we had a big discussion about keeping fingers out of mouths while we work with cookies.  I knew that would be my biggest challenge.  Several of my friends very seldom have an empty mouth.  And it was true.  We washed hands at least five times during this.  Quite an ordeal.

I did each child's initial, and then some assorted shapes.  B!  B for Alice!  Well no.  That's not B, and your name doesn't start with B.  But A for effort!  All the kids know some letters, and some can sing the ABC song, but it's still a crapshoot about whether they'll call the right one at the right time.

 So Alice helped.  Alice rolled.

 Alice pressed.

 And then Mater rolled.

 Mater chose cutters.

 Remy rolled.

And Alice cried piteously at my betrayal.  After all, I asked HER to help bake.  The boys weren't even in the kitchen at the time.  This was our special thing and we were going steady and how DARE I let those stinky boys have a turn.

And then we washed hands again.

And rolled and pressed more cookies.  Stars.  "Star!  Alice eat the star."  Well, maybe you can give this one to your mama!  "Oh!  Mama eat the star!  Mama bite.  Mama eat.  Star for mama."

I let them eat the tiny bits that I cut out of the middles of the letters- the A and B and P and all those.  They're annoyed that's all they get right now, but hey!  Cookies for families!

Merry Christmas.  I love and appreciate all my families so much.