Holiday activity #2: cookie baking

I love to bake at any time of year, but during the holidays our freezers are always well-stocked with special things that don't get made during the rest of the year. I need to keep in mind that we don't need twice as much stuff as normal just because there are 4 of us now instead of 2... especially since 1 isn't even eating any of it yet... but having kiddos definitely makes the prospect of Christmas baking seem even more important.

Yesterday morning we were out at the grocery store, and we picked up some fabulous big copper cookie cutters to round out our collection (yay, Superstore, for mass-producing these babies for $1.88 each! - so glad I didn't buy them from Martha years ago for $10.) We brought them home and it didn't take long to put them to use. It was a dreary, wet day outside so I told Liam we could bake some cookies to entertain ourselves indoors. I had meant the chocolate chip variety, but he was appalled that the cookie cutters wouldn't be involved. So I called my mom to get the sugar cookie recipe of my youth, and we dove into making Christmas trees and snowmen and snowflakes.

Liam lost interest in the rolling and cutting pretty quickly, but when the icing and sanding sugar came out - oooh, baby, was he interested. I have to continually remind myself that the beautifully iced and intricately designed cut-out cookies I used to (attempt to) make, a la Martha, will have their place again, but for now it's all about a schmear of icing and as many sprinkles as will possibly stick. I couldn't even get away with doing a realistic white-sanded snowman; Liam took one look at it, decreed that it should have a green face and proceeded to dump a spoonful of green sugar on top.

The good news is that they taste great, and Liam is mighty proud of his creations. I'm sure this is just the first of many batches for the season.

(We celebrated our first public toilet pee this morning, at the library. Go, Liam!)