Treats

A couple of days before Christmas, I enlisted Suz's help to get the "heavy" baking done.  We made cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning and crescent rolls for Christmas dinner.  I thought it would work out well for the Bens to decorate gingerbread houses with the kids while Suz and I were baking.  I'd taken the kids to the dollar store and let them each choose one candy to use as decoration, which was probably a mistake because they just chose candy they wanted to eat, and guess what they mostly did with it once they had free reign?  We also didn't form the gingerbread (graham cracker) houses early enough, so the frosting wasn't set when they were decorating.  Jack, in particular, enjoyed knocking his over.

Threatening to push it over.
Pushing it over.
Surveying the damage.
Laughing about it.

Cat enjoyed eating while decorating.
I think Eliza had a little help with her house.

Suz requested that we decorate sugar cookies because she hadn't done that before they left NC.  It worked out that my VT brought over a sugar cookie mix she'd made, so we baked it up and had a decorating session with Oma the morning before O&O left.  It was also good to have an excuse to sit down and decorate (minimally, as you'll see) the gingerbread I'd baked before Christmas.  We usually do this as a family, but I was just such a crazy person that I never made it happen.

The cookie decorating crew.

Our gingerbread family -
Ben, Me + Baby, Cat, Jack, Eliza

Cat doesn't decorate gingerbread as minimally as I do... 

The kids and I had fun cutting out these mini gingerbread men,
arranging their arms and legs into different poses.
We imagined they were doing all kinds of things when we posed them before they baked,
but now they all just look like they're dancing, haha.

Yeah for Christmas (and post-Christmas) treats!