Baking Christmas Cookies

One of the things I have very little patience for is cookie decorating!  I don't mind making cookies if it means we throw the ingredients together, slap it on the sheet, and bake it for 10 min or so.  If it requires making icing, coloring icing, fluting icing and teaching all this to others, I am not there yet.  Maybe it is something you get when you become a grandmother! 

Memaw was the leader of today's Christmas fun and without her we would not have accomplished nearly as much.  She made the icing from scratch and she showed the girls how to make the fluting bags.  (Btw, if I am using an incorrect term, please forgive the decorataing novice!)  She bought the cookie dough.  Next year I think I will contribute by making the dough from scratch since that is what I enjoy! :)

Hannah reshaping a few cookies after tranfer to the sheet.  Unfortunately we couldn't find the cutters we had last year. 

Mary taking our cutters etc. to the sink! 

Almost time to bake and decorate!

Whoops!  We made ours a little big and too many on the pan!

Super Memaw showing the girls how to make the icing bag from wax paper.  Then we made nine colors with our food coloring.

Here are some of the finished ones.  Top left is Mary's giant snow man.  She meant to put them together but we didn' realize how much it would spread! :)  It is upside down, but the white with blue is Hannah's igloo shaped cookie.  The bottom middle was supposed to be a wrapped present. Come on now, use your imagination! LOL

We had a few sprinkles too!

Here is a better veiw of Hannah's igloo.

Here is the baked Christmas tree.  It lost some of its shape when baked, but Hannah did a good job decorating it to give you the idea!

Mary's bell.  I love it!

Messy but great fun!

With All My Heart~



Birthday 11 for Sarah!

Sarah's day of celebration started quite early!  She asked for an alarm clock for her birthday which she recieved at the party last week.  Last night she thought she set it for 8:30, but somehow it was 6:30AM when it went off!


At 8:30 when they actually got up Memaw treated her to her favorite breakfast - pancakes! We also had the special treat of hot chocolate to drink.   Then Sarah wanted to watch a movie which had been lost for a while -The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything.  An appropriate movie for our lazy day!


Sarah made pizza rolls (canned biscuit dough, pepperoni, and cheese) which they dip in pizza sauce for lunch.  We have done many variations of this pizza bread. We have used homemade french loaf bread dough, tortillas, and canned biscuits.  You just can't go wrong either way.  I prefer grilled chicken, mushrooms, peppers and onions in mine!  Mmmmm!


After lunch we made personal pinatas for each girl.  We used the easy method with brown lunch bags.  I put the candy in the bag and then folded down the top and stapled it to keep it a surprise.  Sarah wanted hers to look like a party hat. 

Sarah preparing the fringe for her pinata.

Some of our supplies!

The stuffed bags.  Don't really know why the cup was there. LOL Mary was taking these pictures.

Lydia wanted hers to look like an igloo. 

Mary working on her fox!

Lydia with her igloo.  Can you see the "door" we tried to put on?

Mary with her fox.  I love that the fox has white legs!

Sarah wearing her party hat pinata! :)

Hannah, giving her horse a ride.  I didn't get a great shot of the very cute face, but I love the bow on the tail! :)

At dinner we enjoyed tacos which is another favorite of Sarah's.  I also coudn't let a birthday go by without some kind of treat.  InAShoe had a recipe for Cheater's Fudge.  I am no fudge maker but I thought I could handle this.

The recipe only called for chocolate chips, sweet condensed milk, and vanilla.  My mom always added peanut butter to our chocolate fudge (per Baldwin family recipe) and so I added some of that too.  The recipe only said to heat until melted. 

Sarah thinks it tasted pretty good out of the pan!

She also had first dipping rights into the fudge that was still to soft.  :( I guess next time I need to cook it longer.  It did taste good but definitely not the texture of fudge.

Enjoying the party favors from the pinatas.  I have no pictures of us actually hitting the pinatas because I just couldn't see destroying them yet.  We cut a small slit in the bottom.  Who knows, we might fill them up again for Christmas! ;)

We love you so much, Sarah Noel. 

We are praying your 11th year is full of blessings!

With All My Heart~