Christmas Cookies

One of the joys of the Christmas holidays is baking cookies with Tessa.  She loves to bake and it melts my heart when she joins me in the kitchen and hops up on a chair wearing her little apron.  She now rolls out dough, cuts with cookie cutters, squirts icing out of the pastry bag and adds sprinkles.  All of these motions are, coincidentally, great motor skills for a five year old to practice.  Her favorite thing to do is run the big stand mixer.  We sometimes have clouds of powdered sugar and usually wipe out the kitchen pretty good.  But she helps me clean up too.  And let's not forget tasting.  Little Miss Food Network uses her pinky to taste, it's pretty funny to watch.  You can see the variety of cookies we made.  Some are more, um, creative than others.  Tessa couldn't wait to deliver these to our friends and neighbors.  For you lucky people who received these as gifts, they were truly baked with love.