Christmas cookie baking with the Bean

So, I decided to attempt to make sugar cookies with Brenna.  I thought she'd get a kick out of it. I already decided in my mind that it would be about the fun experience and not the cookies.  We don't really need them anyway :) So I bought some cookie cutters that had a recipe on the box and away we went....

She was a surprisingly good helper. We haven't baked anything in about a month and her skills have really come along way (as well as her ability to listen to directions, which always helps)

 She was really into getting into the whole thing and actually started giving me directions of what we needed to do next.  It was pretty funny!  'Ok mama, now we need to....'

A little disclaimer was that I accidentally doubled the butter (WHAT?!?) but luckily caught it early enough to fix it.  Brenna was fairly patient with me as we had a repeat some steps, but I think she liked the repetition so she knew what was going on.  Which is how she knew what to tell me to do next...

So then we rolled out the dough and I was pretty impressed with how well things went....

until all she wanted to do was mash the dough.  Every. Single. Time. We. Rolled. It. Out. This child will barely play with playdough for more than 5 minutes (and that is with the adult actually creating the creatures to play with. She doesn't want to mess up her hands).  She was smashing and smearing and throwing.....ugh.

 So, anyway the first batch was a little overworked, but she helped.  And then she took a nap and Nick and I finished cutting out and decorating the dozens of cookies we made.  Whew!

I haven't made these in so many years that I forgot you had to decorate them before you cooked them, so we had about half plain, half decorated.  Not that it matters ;)

They both loved them.  They are pretty good!

Thanksgiving

We had a nice, low key Thanksgiving this year.  My cousin Pat drove over from Houston and hung out with us for the day.  Nick had a special duty assignment that took him to work in the morning, but he was back with us by 0900. 

I tried explaining to Brenna the idea behind Thanksgiving the night before.  I think some of it stuck with her because she woke up saying 'I'm thankful for salad...' which she actually hates.  I thought it was pretty funny though.

Jace wasn't really in the mood to play Indians.  Poor kid had his 15 month shots a few days prior, caught a cold from me and (as I found out yesterday) grew 2 molars.  

 Thankfully Daddy was home in time to make the feast of ham, turkey, stuffing, AMAZING mashed potatoes and green bean casserole.  Jace vigilantly watched the biscuits bake.

 We did get to watch the Lions play.  Jace is really into pointing at things and babbling excitedly.  Brenna loves to cheer for the football players and toss a football around.

Brenna was pretty taken with Pat, after a bit of a rough start and just kept telling him how she 'loves his eyes' of course he wasn't allowed to sit by her, though.... Jace warmed up to him, too.  Even allowed him to carry him a few times.  

We went to Denny's for breakfast the morning after and the kids ate absolutely everything we put in front of them.  Nothing follows up a good meal like another good meal :)

We can't wait to be able to spend the holidays with all our families again!