Made With Love and Germs

Time for Christmas cookies {and colds} around here.  Seriously, what is December without sprinkles, icing, sugar cookies, and cold germs?  A few sneezes and a lot of snot {lost your appetite, yet?} didn't stop our little bake shop this year. We spent an entire Saturday wearing PJ's, wiping runny noses and baking and decorating in the kitchen.

Maggie definitely deserves the award this year.  She gets first place in the cold department and in the cookie decor stamina race.  Jack comes in a close second with cookie decorating.  However, I get second place for a nasty cold.  Poor Mommy and Mags {and whomever eats our cookies}.  I must note we did wash our hands at least 52 times and we didn't dare give any of our cookies to unsuspecting recipients.  No, we kept all 4 dozen of them here at the Cibula house.  And believe it or not, we've barely put a dent in the three Christmas tupperware dishes we filled up.

But, eating the cookies is no where near the fun.  It's all in the decorating.  We had such a great time this year.  Maggie was actually right in the middle of the action, unlike last year when she was only slithering across the floor.  And cooking is so up her alley.  I literally can't even walk through the kitchen these days, without Maggie spotting me, tottering in with her pseudo toddler run, and chanting, "help Mommy?, help Mommy?".  Thank goodness Santa has a play kitchen on his list for her this year.  Pray she continues to be "nice" so it makes it onto his sleigh.

And sweet Jack, well, please take sweet very literally here.  I can't deny that Jack is an incredible eater...veggies, fruits, healthy choices...no problem.  But, my, my, this boy has a weakness for sweets--just like his Daddy.  This has only evolved in just the past year or so. And, I am trying, in my most non-controlling way, to curb it.  So having said all that, Jack munched on sprinkles and icing during the entire process.   And when it was all over, he somberly declared, "I have a belly ache".  Hmmm...imagine that.

Before Jack's unsuspecting "belly ache", he made it through the decorating of about a dozen and a half cookies.  Maggie, on the other hand, didn't leave the kitchen {or my side} until the last dozen was out of the oven, cooled and decorated.  Remember now--we made 4 dozen.  That is one focused little cook.

So a few germs {surely those germs died in the oven, right?} and lots of love later, we had a super messy kitchen and super messy kids to match.  It was the most beautiful mess my kitchen has ever seen.  And my kiddos looked so yummy with their icing lips and sprinkled fingers, I seriously could have eaten them up, had it not been for the cold symptoms I was fighting. {and the cookies didn't look so bad either}.

I promise all of our cookies didn't look like this...this one just happened to be Jack's special creation.  The more {sugar} the merrier.

I'm pretty sure Maggie cut and re-cut this exact Christmas tree from this exact piece of dough about 22 times.  {If you look closely enough you can see her first 12 cut marks on the dough}

Finally, he is using this rolling pin for it's intended purpose.  Anybody who has a boy and a rolling pin at their house may know just what I'm talking about.

I love how Daddy got in on the action {and so did the kids}.

Yes, we used blue and yellow icing {in addition to the traditional colors} for our Christmas cookies.  In case you've forgotten--blue and yellow are Jack's two favorite colors. 

I would have to assume Jack had just finished downing a spoonful of yellow icing here.  Check out those pursed lips.

Caught in the act and, boy, did she think it was funny.

And finally Maggie got to reap her rewards.  This was her first legal bite per Mommy's permission.