We were invited to a cookie party at the Humphries. What is Christmas holiday without some cookie baking and decorating? What had a great time playing with dough, making the dough into cookie patters, decorating cookies, baking cookies, and eating the finished product. The girls were a bit shy at first. Once some of their little friends showed up and they got to know the big boys they were all for the fun.

Emily getting her dough ready for cookies!

Such a serious girl checking out the dough.

Getting the dough ready for rolling with Mama.

Rolling, rolling, rolling . . . Check out the excited girl in background.

So many cookie cutters to choose from! Wait, where did the glass slipper cutter come from? 

Aiden hanging with the big boys while the egg smearing step occurs.

Aiden giving some decorating input or maybe just hanging out.

This has to be the best step of the whole baking process. Of course eating is really the best step, but Julia did the eating step all the way through the process (note the sprinkles all over her face).

The White Hand of Flour!

Four little kids who skipped naps, made and ate cookies, and played hard were needing a bit of downtime. They got to watch Frosty the Snowman and relax a bit before going home.

The How-To Instructions of decorating a Gingerbread Train and Train Station with our Girls:

Step 1 – Buy a kit – This Mama thought this was an awesome shortcut.

Step 2 – Lay the pieces out with cute kids

Step 3 – Assemble Structures (maybe next time give the structure without the base to the older kid)

Step 4 – Decorate with icing and candy (best for Mama to apply icing and kids to do candy) – Don’t worry if you don’t use all of the included pieces and decorations, we didn’t.

Emily took all the steps seriously. She wanted the station to resemble the photo on the box and worked to do that

Julia was very emotional about her process. Lots of joy added to the decorating.

Step 5 – Admire your creation with happy grins.

Emily was pleased with how hers turned out. Symmetry was important to her design. When asked which part was her favorite was she said sticking all the candy on.

Julia had a decorating philosophy of just getting stuff stuck on wherever her heart desired. Her favorite piece to decorate were the big wheels and she talked for quite a while about the colors she chose to use.

Step 6 – Repeat next year!

We are continuing a tradition from Robby’s childhood of hanging an ornament on the advent wreath each of the days of December. Robby has really enjoyed watching Emily pick out the ornaments remembering back to he and his brothers doing the same thing. It was a lot of fun to do with her and Julia enjoyed looking and touching them. We saved a Santa ornament for Christmas Eve and baby Jesus for Christmas day.