Decorating & Baking

Decorating for the holidays is fun, but when you have a little helper it is sweet too.  Tessa was so excited about putting up our tree when we got home from Texas.  I was excited too, until I realized about half the lights were out and I needed to restring the entire tree.  Since we have a full basement and a fake tree, I have been spoiled by leaving the tree intact, lights and all, for the past nine years.  Each year, Ryan carries it upstairs and we plug it in with very little fuss.  Not so this year.  But, after trips to three different Targets, because lights sell out quickly, our tree is now beautifully lit.  And it had better stay that way for at least another nine years. 

 

The bonus of the lights ordeal was that, while at Target, I found a small tree on sale.  So Tessa now has her very own tree.  We decorated it with ornaments from mine and Ryan's childhood.  I'm always sentimental when I look at ornaments from my childhood and, of course, I got sappy watching Tessa hang them on her tree.  She also has things she made at school, pink jewels and princesses on her tree.  Finally both trees are done. 

Holidays mean baking around here.  I am not much of a baker since I don't personally eat many sweets, but my child is doing her best to change that.  Not only does Tessa love sweets, but we find endless Christmas cookie ideas that I wouldn't mind trying.  Our first project was gingerbread.  Tessa's new favorite kitchen utensil is the rolling pin.  I forsee many rolled cookies in my future.  We mixed and rolled and cut our cookies.  Each time I called them gingerbread men, Tessa corrected me.  We were making gingerbread girls.  My usual ocd self had to take a back seat when it came to icing them.  They were her cookies so I let her run with it.      

And she did a fabulous job!  She was so proud of the finished product and I was proud that our cookies were edible.  We had rolled and cut the scaps in smaller shapes and they kind of looked like dog treats although Ryan assured me they didn't taste like dog treats.  Don't ask how he knows what dog treats taste like!  But the gingerbread girls were adorable and Anabelle was happy to eat the other cookies.  Stay tuned for more baking adventures from our kitchen.