Today was a busy day! The kids and I did some Christmas shopping this morning after taking Auntie to work, then did some grocery shopping, then came home and the kids took naps. While they napped I made a bunch more of the spicy hot chocolate mix and then worked on wrapping presents and getting packages ready to go out to friends. Oh, and I folded laundry. After naptime, Killy watched Monsters, Inc while I did a little more wrapping, then I took stuff to the post office while David watched Killy and Ellie.

Now the fun part: the kids and I made gingerbread cookies! I found a wonderful recipe online, which I modified a bit, of course. Its so simple! (Mix: 1 egg, 1 tbsp hot water, 1 tsp vinegar, 3/4 cup molasses, 1/2 cup butter, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1 tsp soda, 1 tsp ginger, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 3/4 cup white flour, 1 cup whole wheat flour. Roll out, cut, and bake at 350 for about 8 minutes. Frost and decorate as desired – I like using confectioner’s sugar, milk, and lemon extract to make the icing.)
Here’s the kids helping mix the dough:

Here they are cutting out the cookies:

Here’s Killy decorating the cookies:

And here’s the showing off and eating:

Of course, we were all so stuffed with cookies and cookie dough we hardly had room for dinner. Every time I looked away for a moment, Ellie would (literally!) go face down on the cutting board and start eating the dough off the board! Killy’s favorite part was putting the candy decorations on the cookies. He was so proud of the cookies, he couldn’t wait to tell Daddy and Auntie about making them.
After dinner, we watched Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer. You know, Santa was a real jerk through most of that movie. Anyway, then I wrapped some more presents, and now I’m relaxing with a cup of spicy hot chocolate…. ahhhhhh

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