It's Cookie Decorating Day!

Oh my, oh my--- it's my favorite day of the year. It's Grandkid Cookie Decorating Day. This is the day that I get a pile of the grandchildren all to myself to decorate Christmas cookies! They were already off school for the holiday and looking for something to do. We collected four of the little stinkers and brought them back to our house. Jameson, the oldest, opted to stay with his dad and go workout at the gym. So we had these four helpers were all ready and eager to come over to Grandma and Grandpa's house and spend the entire day.

We started out with a little breakfast buffet. I found that if I put out a variety of breakfast items on the island they can choose what they like and then there's no arguing or leftover wasted food. They have choices of fruit, applesauce, a variety of juices and eggnog, cereal, and toast with my special Trader Joe's cookie butter! I love that they are all set up on my little table in the sunshine. Laughing and giggling and talking to each other. That's the best part of this day: listening to them talk and relate to each other.  The Christmas Excitement is high, and they are just chock full of energy and joy that the season brings.

While the younger ones went off to play in the playroom, Chelsea and I were making frosting in the kitchen. Once we mixed up the big bowls of white frosting, we split it up into smaller containers where she could add food coloring to each one.

The two little girls came out to get their aprons. A long time ago when I started this tradition I made a whole bunch of kid aprons in all different sizes. It's amazing though, these kids are growing up so fast that only the biggest aprons fit. I think it's time to sew some more for the next decade. Then we will have large enough aprons to fit everybody.

Clayton started getting the table set up for the decorating. He had the table covered up with a vinyl tablecloth spread out and all of the cookie cooling racks. He brought in the variety of sprinkles and sugar shakers and set them out across the table too. Now they were in reach for everyone on each side of the table. Chelsea brought in the colored frostings and we were ready to begin.

Grandpa ran around with the camera and took pictures of us all set up at the table before we were ready to start.  The music was playing, the stuff was ready, and the kids were more than eager to start. 

Chelsea and I spread the frosting on each of the cookies and then we would pass them down on plates to the other three--- who were ready with all of the sprinkles and decorations and candies.

 

We had 169 cookies to decorate. 

Claire and Whitney first started out kind of just tossing on as much as they could and moving on to the next cookie. After a little while, they started slowing down and making more detailed cookies and carefully placing the decorations on each one.

As each one would finish up four or five cookies on their plate, then Grandpa would take them off to space them out carefully on the drying racks. From there he would take each rack into the kitchen and spread them out on the counters. That way the frosting could get hard and firm. Later they could be stacked up between layers of wax paper in containers. Each family was going to go home with about 5 dozen cookies, with the rest remaining here for us!

We had Christmas music playing and the kids were very, very silly. But it was fun talking and hearing about their excitement. With the upcoming holiday, and knowing Santa was keeping track of things, they were on their very best behavior. They talked more about what they were GIVING to other people, and very little about GETTING things. I like that.

  

  

We only had one mishap, my butter knife full of green frosting landed smack dab down on the oriental carpet underneath my feet. I was able to quickly clean it up before the food coloring set in. Even the littlest girls were very careful and didn't make a mess.

Everyone worked so well together and cooperated.

Here's a little video clip 

that we shot during a quick break 

when I went to wash my hands:

Here are the results of our wonderful morning. We decorated all of the 169 cookies. A couple of them broke during the decoration process and were quickly consumed by the eager little Busy Bee workers. Maybe a few got broke on purpose? LOL

We cleaned up quickly and put things away. The kids all helped. Then while we were preheating the oven and getting ready to make lunch, these three decided that the chairs in the dining room would make an excellent airplane! Whitney in the middle decided she was the gate attendant and she collected passports from everybody. Clayton was the pilot up in the front and they all went for a ride. I'm not sure exactly where they went, but it kept them busy while we got things ready in the kitchen to make lunch.

Quite the Airplane Pilot.

The cell phone on his feet is part of his control panel

in the cockpit. 

It is fun to still be 9 years old and indulge in creative imagination play.

Then the kids ended up playing in the new office room, and decided that Whitney would be the teacher while both Clayton and Claire were the students. They hauled out some school supplies and she taught the lessons. I eavesdropped a bit, and Whitney sure sounded like a teacher! 

I see so much of Whitney's mother, Heather, in her play and in her speech at that same age. I love it that she is confidant and although younger than Clayton, she can be the leader.  She has such creative ideas and led her classroom easily.

The oldest, Chelsea, and I were in the kitchen getting things ready to make mini pizzas for lunch. We recently discovered these cute little mini pizza kits at Aldi. There are three crusts and three little packages of sauce in a pack. We add bowls of pepperonis and the cheese to the island set up.  We don't bother with other ingredients, because this is all the kids ever want. Cheese n Pepperoni.  We write their names on the parchment paper on the tray, so each one knows which finished pizza will be theirs. 

(Because once you bake them, they all look alike anyhow)

They do enjoy the process of putting together their own little pizza and putting on the cheese and sauce and pepperonis. It's kind of cute that each one has their own style or technique.

They had to get them "just right"  

and use up all of the cheese by the time they were finished.

We popped them in the oven to bake while the kids got the table set and ready for lunch. We had Christmas carols playing and the house was smelling so good with their baking pizzas.

Again, they clustered around the table in the kitchen to enjoy their treats. It started to cloud up outside so we didn't have the sunshine that we had in the morning. I love having them all around the table. Grandma and Grandpa both opted to make sandwiches and pass on the pizzas.

I think these little grins and pizza smeared faces tell the story. They were really having fun. Plus they've got to essentially make their own lunch.

  

  

After lunch we let them run around and play for awhile. It was too cold to go outside. The windchills were in the single digits. But the day was stretching on and soon it was time to sort out the cookies and make up the boxes to be sent home. The kids took turns choosing out their favorite cookies from the assortment on the kitchen counters. Whatever was left over is what this grandma and grandpa get to keep at their own house.

  

One more special thing we did before they left was to give each child a package. We are not getting together with all of the family until New Year's Day. So this was a special little "pre-present" before the holidays that they could open up now and take home.

Each child opened up their package. On top was a special ornament that they could hang on their tree. It's not so fun to get an ornament on New Year's Day....  it's much better to get it BEFORE Christmas and hang it on your tree. Then deeper inside each of their red bags were the Christmas village houses that I make for them each year.

Each year, I spend hours upon hours painting up these little village ceramic houses for each child. I think of them as I paint and I smile fondly at the memories from the previous years. I've been doing this for many years for the grandkids and they love setting up their little Christmas Villages at their homes. I think this is the first year that the two youngest girls actually realized that each year I actually painted them. Other years they just remember that they got a house. So this year we talked about my painting them and how long it takes and how I smile and make them with love and creativity. 

Claire got a Roadside Hotel,

 and Whitney got a little General Store

 

Clayton got a railroad station 

and Chelsea got a little coffee shop

  

Well, our day was coming to an end. It was time to take one more picture of all of us together on the couch. Grandpa took the shot for us. Actually he took about 15 shots until we could find one where everybody was looking forward at the same time.

They didn't want to go home, and we had groans and protests. We bundled up all of the kids into their gear, packed up their cookies and hauled them all home. We got huge spontaineous hugs in appreciation.  

It was a long delightful day --- but boy oh boy this Grandma and Grandpa were tired. We need a nap. And of course, when we woke up we had to nibble on a couple Christmas cookies.

My Best Day This Year

I must say, I have some pretty thoughtful kids. They all made Saturday possible, and especially the oldest daughter, Erin, who planned the event.

What did she do? Wellllll she managed to get everybody to schedule a busy Saturday in December to do a special thing for this silly grandma. Erin loaded up all seven grandchildren, yes 7! and brought them 70+ miles to my house. It had to be done early in the morning to get here because of other commitments in the afternoon from some of the families. That meant getting up and hitting the road by 6 a.m. Picking up grandchildren along the way.

During their 70+ mile journey here, the oldest grandson, nine year old Jameson, kept us apprised of their location via text on his Auntie's cell phone. We knew just when they were ready to come tumbling in the door!!!  They were due to arrive by 8 a.m. So we had to get prepared!

Grandpa had been busy cooking up sausages and special snowman shaped pancakes. That was his good contribution to the special day.

I had everything set and ready with 32 dozen sugar cut-out cookies that I baked earlier in the week. I used up three and a half bags of powdered sugar to make enough fresh frosting in the morning. I had to split it up into separate bowls to add food coloring.

I had a wide assortment of decorations and sprinkles. We used parmesan cheese shakers to put the sprinkles in to help control the mess. As opposed to just wide open store containers with kids dipping in with their fingers...lol lol!

I already had three little baking aprons, because usually the grandkids are only here two at a time to help me cook or bake. So earlier in the week I made up five more aprons, including a little tiny one for baby Claire who is only one year old. They were reversible Christmas prints so each child could choose which way they wanted to wear it.

The dining room table was covered in vinyl and ready for the little stinkers to start getting creative. I figured the fun was well worth the memories and the mess.

As soon as breakfast was done, Grandpa took care of all the clean up while Erin and I wrangled all the little helpers around the dining room table. All of them put on their aprons and posed for a pic.

I even managed to get in a pic with most of them....

We had Christmas music playing, including my favorite childhood album Gene Autry's Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. The kids told stories and laughed and giggled throughout the morning. I would spread on the frosting and hand them over to the kiddos to decorate. I was going as fast as I could and barely kept up with them.

Even little Whitney was decorating and she is only 2 years old!

Erin was also keeping Claire, the youngest, busy while we worked on cookies. 

Tray by tray of cookies were transferred back into the kitchen and laid out on the island to get the frosting to harden up a bit. Then they could be stacked into large containers so every family got about 8 dozen cookies to go home with.

Shortly, the cookies were being stacked along the counter tops 

and in staggered trays on top of the stove.

I was amazed, but the last kid to hold out and continue decorating and not take a break was Mason! He is a five year old that seems to really have developed a long attention span. Unusual at that age, especially for a boy!

The others took breaks here and there

 but came back again and again to help finish up.

There was some finger-licking going on, as well as some snitching of chocolate chips. We did an "Eat A Cookie Break" about halfway through and everybody could choose their favorite.

Amazingly we finished up all 32 dozen cookies.

 I didn't expect to get them all done.

Then we had some time for each grandchild to write a letter to Santa. They were then mailed out that afternoon to the Chilton post office, where they will be delivered to the North Pole and be promptly answered by return mail.

It turns out we had almost an hour for playtime before they had to bundle up and hit the road. For some silly reason, the kids started a Christmas conga line. I have absolutely no idea why? Maybe it will become a new family tradition?

The two littlest ones wanted to join in on all the fun. We sang Christmas carols and we made sure the little ones got to be part of the joy. The sugar high had kicked in by now so they were pretty antsy. Although I love them dearly, they really needed to get outside and run around more than anything to burn off some of that sugar!!!!

We carefully packaged up the cookies, along with some Pecan Mexican Wedding cookies I had made the week before.

I got lots of hugs and cuddles and happy times with these grandchildren. My heart was overflowing with joy, and I even get tears in my eyes right now as I write this. What a special day.

That brave daughter of mine loaded up 7 sugar-laden children back into her vehicle to head north.

And there they gooooo

She had to drop two kids off in Green Bay on the east side and then bring two others to meet with our other daughter on the west side... and have lunch with them all in a restaurant. I can't imagine the Sugar High Kids sat well in the restaurant, but what do I know? They are all used to eating out and they know how to behave. Then Erin had to take her three children all afternoon to a crazy wild birthday party at a gymnasium party place. At least her kids could bounce off all of that energy on the trampolines. lol


Honestly, there was a lot less decorations on the floor than I had originally expected to see:

We let the dogs lick up a few decorations for a while, off the floor, but then we put them away in a bedroom behind a shut door so they wouldn't get sick.

Grandpa and I heaved a big sigh, and started cleaning up all of the little decorations. The vacuum cleaner did a great job as well as a Swiffer Wet Jet. In no time at all the house was back in shipshape and you would never have known we had been descended upon by 7 adorable sugar-laden grandchildren.

It seemed it was over way too soon----

But I have lots of smiles in my heart of the wonderful day.

Plus I have this video from the camera I had set up for about the first hour and a half before it ran out of memory. (it may not work right away because it is still uploading, but you might have to come back and click it again)

Now do you think we sat down and took a break or took a nap? Ohhhh nooooo, not us.

We donned our painting clothes, took out all of our painting supplies, and put a fresh coat of paint on the walls and ceiling in the bathroom. We wanted to do that before installing the wooden stained beadboard below on the lower portions of the walls.

After a quick supper, then I went down into the basement and finished staining the last of the upper cap trim. Now all of the wood was completely stained and polyurethaned and ready to be cut and installed in the bathroom.

More on that in the next blog.

***A special huge thank you to our daughter Erin and son-in-law Waylen for arranging this day.
***A very heartfelt thank you to our daughter Heather and son-in-law Jesse for letting their children come for the day and meeting up in Green Bay afterwards to pick them up.
***And a appreciative thank you to our son Dan and daughter-in-law Heather for letting their kids come in the morning, even though they had a Christmas celebration in the afternoon to attend far away, and then an evening dance recital for another relative.

It was a very long day for everyone, and I appreciated the effort that went into arranging it just for me to have cookie decorating at my house.

I am truly blessed and grateful.

My heart is full of Grandmotherly Love.