Cookies!

I have been on some sort of weird baking kick since Thanksgiving, when I kicked off the season with 2 batches of salted caramel chocolate chip cookie bars and a gross of peanut butter blossoms.  Then there were weeks of chocolate chip cookies, monster cookies, no bake haystack cookies, etc.  And then candy cane blossoms and more peanut butter blossoms for the elementary school's staff exchange.  And then gingerbread people for the kids; classrooms.  And today.  CHRISTMAS COOKIES.  So many of them, considering they are really only for us (AND SANTA).

This picture is kind of a bummer:  Cooper clearly thought he was one of the guys (even though he had no naughty/nice apron) and then we put him down for a morning nap.

I have to mine the after Christmas sales for new aprons for these guys, so we can pass their current ones down to the little kids.  This one will not fit over Harry's giant head for another season.

Such concentration!  As much as they loved rolling them out and cutting shapes (and they LOVED it), decorating was their hands-down favorite.

Jack ate so much frosting that he needed a popcorn antidote.

Cooper was happy to decorate a few when he woke up.

I took the dough out to let it reach room temp at about 7:40.  This was when we dug out the huge bin of cookie cutters and debated which ones were Christmas-y (Ben always uses the T-Rex), let the frosting warm up, put parchment paper on cookie sheets, preheated the oven, etc.  By 8:30 when Cooper went down for a nap, we had everything ready, including sprinkles and colored sugar and wire cooling racks and a dubious looking batch of brightly colored icing that covered well but tasted kind of gross.  And I cleaned the last of it up around 12:45, just in time to go outside and shovel for 2 hours while Cooper took another nap.  So 5 HOURS spent prepping, making, and cleaning up cookies-- not counting the time it took to make the dough and frosting last night.  No wonder we only do these once a year.

In other news, I am fat.  My stomach is not that big, but oh, the rest of me sure is.  Good times.  In 12 or so weeks (zOMG-- we need to get it together fr the great bedroom shuffle) this might become a weightloss blog.