Highlights from the Haskins: Decorating Christmas Cookies

Ok, honesty time. I have been super excited for our countdown to Christmas for about a year when I first learned about it from a friend at church. For months in advance I had planned and purchased a few items ahead of time. Both Elijah and I started out eagerly awaking each morning to discover what our activity for the day would be, and I would happily stay up after the kids were in bed to record the day's events on my blog. However, the newness and excitement started to wear off around day 14. Even Elijah started to loose a bit of his enthusiasm. I have to admit I was beginning to feel like I had become a slave to something I had originally hoped would be lots of fun. Don't get me wrong, I have definitely loved each activity that we have done and having something to look forward to each night has been helpful, but I was also beginning to realize I needed some balance to the whole ordeal and needed to cut myself some slack. When you find yourself getting a little snarky with your son while making a Christmas chain, or when you want nothing more than to just go to bed instead of spending time together, then you know something's gotta give.

So, I have decided we will do an activity when we feel like it and I will record it in my blog when I have the time and energy for it. Hopefully this will help bring a bit more balance to everything.

So, to catch you up on Monday through Wednesday...on Monday our activity was to "Go out for dessert." This was perfect because Daddy really wanted some frozen yogurt and was so sweet he treated us to dessert with some of his Christmas money (an early gift). We really went to town on the yogurt and toppings and I must admit, I am ashamed at how much money we spent on only 3 servings of froyo. However, I forgot my camera so we don't have any pictures of our time there.

All day Tuesday I was feeling sick so I went to bed early and we didn't do any activity.

Last night we might not have done something again, but some very close friends had an opening in their schedule and I was feeling much better having rested all day Tuesday (thank you Jerod for stepping in and helping take care of me :-) So last night we decorated Christmas cookies with Justin and Jessica Fraser. We had decorated cookies a couple years back and really enjoyed it so we thought we would try again. Megan was only able to stay up for about 5 minutes of the cookie making and then had to go to bed.

Elijah had fun making designs in the flour.

Rolling out the dough with his great grandma's rolling pin

Justin and Jerod talking about stuff on their phones

We had about 40 different cookie cutters but tried to limit ourselves to only half that ;-)

Everyone got in on the decorating after the cookies had been baked.

Here is a train Elijah made for me (the blue frosting is even peppermint flavored)

This originally started out as a rocket, then when it wasn't working out, we convinced Justin to turn it into a fish. It definitely works better as a fish.

Auntie Jessica made a beautiful flower design with the holly leaves.

Cookies from our family (Elijah made the candy cane, I attempted to make a snowflake, and Jerod likes to make unique cookies...his is a clown that was made out of a snowman cookie cutter...can you see both?)