A Baking Day

We spent the better part of last Sunday in the kitchen baking sugar cookies for Christmas.  We wore aprons I scored in the five dollar bins at Michaels, discovered great success rolling out heaps of cookie dough on our butcher block, and went through six bottles of sprinkles during decorating (one about four cookies).  Cruz was a big helper, Mila was a dough eater, and we made a massive mess, but shared lots of laughs through the process. 

Cruz was quite the helper and I'm realizing as I type these posts lately just how much this kid has grown this past year.  He doesn't just help anymore, but really helps, and he's always surprising me with what he can do.  And when Mila wants to be a helper, too, Cruz's patience with her and his humor in her not-so-helpfulness is the so sweet.  At one point when we were rolling out dough, Mila got caught in the moment and started literally throwing flour in the air.  It was like a movie scene, literally flour everywhere.  Mortified at first, we soon let her go with it and were all three laughing until tears were rolling down our cheeks.  Sometimes, I suppose you just gotta let it go.   

Mila wasn't the most helpful by any means, but she looked pretty sweet in her "Elsa" apron (yes she coined herself this after putting it on), and liked being in the middle of the action.  After discovering the dough had a taste to it and wasn't just play-doh, we had a hard time keeping her hands out of it.  A disheveled little princess she is.  

  
Frosting and decorating our little cut-out masterpieces took us well through dinner time.  It went pretty well for awhile; that is, until Cruz's discovered technique of sticking chocolate chips in the unfrosted cookie to "hide them" ended up in a few cookies breaking.  He was tired and grew frustrated, leading to a cookie meltdown.  Mila, who was minding her own business and averaging about one bottle of sprinkles per cookie, stopped what she was doing and began consoling her brother.  Trying to alleviate the situation ourselves, Beau and I struggled to keep a straight face as Cruz is crying and Mila is stroking his head with her sticky, frosting covered hand.  It was pathetic and sweet, one of those simple moments that made us stop what we were doing and fall a little bit more in love with these two unique little souls.  

We now have dozens of sugar cookies and chocolate star cookies to get us through the season.  Some others are allowed to eat, and others not so much. :)