Blaine wanted to make real gingerbread men cookies.  That made me remember how I loved a chocolate ginger cookie the Volunteer Park Cafe in Seattle made.  So, I found a recipe online and we tried it!  Unfortunately, the recipe was meant for round cookies, not rolling, as we found.  The kids were disappointed.

But they still enjoyed eating the cookies!

Luckily, Daddy stepped in to help the kids make some traditional sugar cookies complete with the rolling and cutting steps Blaine wanted.

We decorated the cookies with red and green icing!  The finished cookies were tasty and beautiful.

On the subject of food, Blaine also enjoyed these chocolate dipped pretzel rods that he made at school.

Then we played Dominoes, an early Christmas gift for Blaine.  He was thrilled to win the first round.

On the last day of school on 12/21, the kids got to meet Santa for the first time at the preschool party at LAC.  I didn’t get any pics because Sarah was frightened and I had to hold her in my lap, instead.  Then on 12/22 we went back to the Westchester Children’s museum with some friends in the morning, and spent the afternoon packing for our trip to PA.  We also made another batch of the chocolate ginger cookies to take with us to share.

Here’s a final look at our tree, fully decorated for the holidays.