Pre-Christmas sweet tooth & more

A little bit more of December...

Since I had two willing helpers (Momma, can I lick the bowl? Momma, can me and Jojo have some chocolate chips? Cookie! Cookie), I pulled out a few cookie recipes--old favorites and new ones to try--and we got to work one Saturday. Kathy joined us for the majority of the cookie baking, which made everything go much more smoothly!

 An old favorite: red and green meltaways--they really do melt in your mouth. TJ loved these.

 Licking a spatula!

 Helping lay out the 3-color cookies for baking.

 A sampling of our day of baking: meltaways, peppermint fudge, 3-color cookies, cookie bark, and mexican chocolate cookies.

TJ's preschool had a Christmas party. As part of the festivities, the kids got to make a reindeer to later eat as a snack. Here's what they are intended to look like--a really cute idea.

TJ is allergic to peanut butter, so his teacher thoughtfully brought in jelly for him to use. She couldn't have known that he doesn't like jelly, so here's what his looked like. He got to eat plain bread. :)

 Jojo got his first haircut. As you can see, it was a positive, enjoyable experience. He started crying the minute we sat in the chair, as if he just knew it wasn't going to be fun. Not pleasant!

Ed put up a mantel over one side of our fireplace. I was thrilled that he got it done in time for stockings. (The boys' stockings didn't quite get finished for Christmas, but they're now ready for next year!) The wooden mantel is attached by these two dowels.

 Close-up of the dowel:

Finished mantel, decorated for Christmas (minus two stockings). We love it! It makes the whole fireplace cozier.