Almost Recovered

Well...the kitchen and I have almost recovered from yesterday's festivities. I love that the kiddos love Christmas, and I love that they want to celebrate, but holy cow last night was a bit much.

We bake a lot around here, but we have never made Christmas cookies to distribute. Last week, though, we were reading If You Take a Mouse to the Movies, and Mouse makes cookies. And the author kindly includes the recipe in the back of the book. Clearly, this meant we had to make cookies to take to all of the neighbors. We didn't have any plans last night, so it seemed like a perfect night for baking. In case you are wondering, a quadruple batch pushes the KitchenAid right to the edge. 

I have no pictures of the cookie baking process. The kids are getting to be really good bakers. Issa did all of the reading and measuring. Evan did all of the mixing and scraping. They took turns scooping. The cookies taste great, but the mess is something. They had a blast delivering the cookies, though, and I have a feeling this just became an annual tradition.

Since the kitchen was already a mess, it seemed like the perfect time to decorate the gingerbread house. Evan had a plan:

 Issa thought these little candies were especially cute:

 Usually, the kids draw very firm territory boundaries. For the first time, they collaborated:

 Issa made that snowman on her roof (you're welcome; I know you were wondering what it was), and Evan wanted one on his side.

Issa went with clean lines:

 Evan was a bit more free-form:

 Do you see that orneriness?

I think we are all de-sugared, and the kitchen has been returned to rights. I can still hear the giggles, though, and that makes the mess worth it.