baking & making gingerbread cookies (2017)

Making gingerbread cookies every Christmas has been a family tradition for my entire life (and my Mom has been making them even longer than that, so over 30 years)! It’s something I always look forward to sharing with my girls. They get so excited to cut and decorate them; we make a giant mess, and then we give away almost all of them.They were both really good at cutting their own cookies this year! Their favorite shapes were candy canes and teddy bears.I always encourage them to use the gingerbread people cutters, since those are my favorites to decorate later. Gosh I just love these sweet sisters.This little angel baby was so happy to just hold a cookie cutter and laugh the entire time. I’m sure she’ll be covered in flour and dough next year!Poof! They’re baked! We waited until Nella had gone to bed so that we could decorate them.I think the girls would have decorated until we ran out of cookies and/or sprinkles, but we let them make five each, and then they headed off to bed. If you’re wondering, we use corn syrup as a sort of “glue”- we paint that on, and then apply the sprinkles and candies. Daddy jumped in and helped do some! We also love to use royal icing. Ta-da! These were some of my favorites from this year. Kaya loaded that house up with as much candy as possible; Kaelyn made that stocking in front, and Michael did a lot of the trees this year. Of course, I had to make my little swimsuit people, too!Now I think I need some more gingerbread cookies. Once a year just isn’t enough!