Weekend in Review

Last weekend was filled with lots of Christmas fun. On Saturday Everly had soccer and then after that we headed to Home Depot to make gingerbread houses. These were much more work than the ornaments last weekend. It did end up pretty cute but we all had paint on us by the time we left. After getting home and eating lunch Everly and I headed over to my sister's to start our annual Christmas cookie baking. We ended up finishing them up on Sunday afternoon/evening. I still have to make some and my sister has to make some but we got the sugar cookies done and decorated as well as the snicker doodles and everyone's favorite, the peanut butter kisses. I decorated soooo many cookies and went home with frosting on me. It was a good weekend and I can't wait to eat cookies all month long!

The Great Cookie Extravaganza 2016

This past weekend we had our annual cookie baking day. It showed up in my timehop yesterday that I posted about the cookie extravaganza 7 years ago, so we have been doing this awhile! My post from last year is HERE and the year before is HERE. I actually went over to my sister's house on Friday night and made some dough for the peanut butter kisses so that we would be able to start right away Saturday morning. I literally spent 12 hours straight at my sister's baking and decorating cookies. We tried a new recipe this year for Funfetti Shortbread Bites and they turned out really good. Like dangerously addicting good. We made sooooo many cookies and I still need to make snickerdoodle and my sister needs to make chocolate chip. My sister has a deep freezer full of frozen cookies at her house! I know it seems ridiculous, but we all use these cookies for holiday parties and for gatherings throughout the month. They freeze really well, too. I actually only ate maybe 3 cookies all day long which is kind of nuts, but don't worry there are plenty more for me to eat!

Aspen looooooves cookies.

Shortbread bites and peanut butter kisses

Gingerbread and sugar cutouts

If you take a phone break, Everly will use Hershey kisses to decorate her cookie

Such a mess!

We even got Alex and Kory to decorate some. I made the family ornaments!

The Great Cookie Extravaganza 2015

We had our annual cookie baking day this past weekend. First I had a 12 mile training run because if you are going to eat cookies all day, you better run first, haha. We have been doing this for a few years now and you can see my post about them last year here. We make double, triple, and quadruple batches of several different types of cookies. The classics include chocolate chip, gingerbread, snicker doodle, peanut butter kisses, and sugar. We also made chocolate crinkles because those have been popular and we tried out chocolate dipped shortbread this year and I think those turned out really good as well. We freeze the cookies and take them out for parties and what not as it gets closer to Christmas. I will be bringing some to my work party tomorrow! Everly and Teddy helped decorate some sugar cookies this year. Everly loves to pile on the sprinkles. So many cookies. We must have a problem because as we were making them we kept saying, "we might need to make more." We loooooove cookies and we look forward to this day every year! Also, this year there was even a spreadsheet and a cookie binder because we take this job seriously!

 

12 miles done! Now time for cookies!

 

We start buying ingredients weeks before to take advantage of all of the baking sales at the grocery store. 

 

Two kitchen aid mixers are a must. 

 

Chocolate crinkles and chocolate dipped shortbreads

 

unwrapped hershey kisses and sugar cookies waiting for frosting

family wreaths by Krystyn

And custom Santa hats also by Krystyn

yum!

don't worry, they ate those cookies.

snickerdoodle cookies

 

I am not even a huge gingerbread fan, but you just have to make them. They turned out really good, too. 

Here is also a quick little video from our cookie baking!

The Great Cookie Extravaganza

Every year after thanksgiving my sisters, mom, and I make a ridiculous amount of Christmas Cookies. We bake several different kinds and then freeze them so we can bring them out for Christmas and bring them over to other Christmas parties. They actually freeze really well and thaw very easily and my sister has a big deep freezer that we keep them in. Some of the ones we always make are Peanut Butter Kisses, Sugar Cookie Cutouts, Gingerbread, Snickerdoodle, and Chocolate Crinkles. We also have done chocolate chip, shortbread, thumbprints, peanut butter cup cookies, and red velvet crinkles. I think this year we are adding oatmeal because Cam likes that. We always end up taking all day to bake and by the end no one wants to decorate so this year we baked some on our own and spent almost a whole day just doing sugar cookies. It was still exhausting because there are just so many cookies. We have like no extra room in the freezer. This year my sister started a new tradition of personalizing cookies for everyone. She did some stockings and wreaths and some Mickey's for the kids since we made these right before our trip to Disneyland. I was so busy rolling and baking that I actually didn't even snack on much so I can't wait until we start busting them out and eating them!

Alex helped entertain the toddlers and keep them away from the oven. Him and Katy even took them to the park.

Gingerbread men

Our littlest helper

 

my sister realized after we forgot to make one for our brother...oops.

Grandma and her babies

Brother made it in this time

We joked that we needed to put the cookies in this size tub...but seriously, we could have filled it.

so many cookies

Evie even got to decorate when she woke up from naptime but she really just wanted to eat them.