C is for Cookie, S is for Snow

We woke up this morning to yet another snowfall. It was cold and dreary looking outside, so I made a cup of coffee, let Matt take the car to work, and relished the idea of a "lazy" (read: we don't have to rush off anywhere) day at home. Well soon enough the coffee took effect, and I somehow decided that it was the perfect day for Jaina and I to make cookies. This, as I should have remembered, became an all day affair. Jaina of course wanted to use cookie cutters, so when Lewis went down for his morning nap we made the sugar cookie dough that has to sit in the fridge a few hours. After lunch we dug out the Alphabet cookie cutters that Jaina got as a gift and we haven't used for a year. It was much more fun this time as she knows her letters and so we got/had to make them all. Anyways, when Lewis went down for his afternoon nap just after 1:00, Jaina went straight to her room where we read a couple of stories and she had a short "rest" before we began. At 2:00 we put on our aprons and got set to begin rolling and cutting the dough. At 2:10 Lewis joined us to watch from his Exersaucer, his nap having been cut short by a dirty diaper. (Why do they sleep forever when you are waiting for them to wake up so you can go somewhere, and hardly sleep at all when you would like them to be tucked away in their room for just a little longer??). We had a lovely time cutting out all the letters, baking them, and munching on the ones that broke as we tried to put them on the cooling racks. We then quickly cleaned up, Lewis was almost beside himself by this time, so we took a break so I could feed him. It was quickly approaching the time when I needed to start preparing supper, so as soon as we could we began to whip up the icing. But oops, in our hurry we forgot to put our aprons back on and got into quite a mess when Jaina began to stir the icing sugar I had just added. Then we proceeded to try and ice about 5 dozen cookies (I forgot how many the recipe made!) as Lewis fussed some more and I made supper at the same time. I have to give Jaina credit, her skills and independence are certainly growing, she iced probably about half the cookies. She insisted on doing this, and I'm sure you can imagine the work area (and the cookies - I think we'll be serving them to just the closest friends and family!). Although even I found that it is very hard to ice certain (actually many) letters of the alphabet. Anyways, by the time we were done my cookie craving was long gone and I remember thinking that it would be a long long time before I ever wanted to see another cookie. Then we rushed to eat and get Lewis to bed as tired as he was again, leaving the kitchen looking like a hurricane went through. But now Jaina is in bed too, it is all cleaned up and I have just (gasp!) enjoyed one more cookie. It was a fun way to spend the day.

Jaina is such a smarty pants lately too. Today was fish and chips for supper (because Matt was gone to hockey so that's when we eat fish). Jaina is sometimes picky and I knew she would refuse fish if I told her that's what we were having, as we had just had salmon at my mom's, which she does not like. But she has eaten the fish and chips many times before. So I said nothing, just served up the fish sticks for dinner. She happily was telling me how she likes to dip her "chicken nuggets" in her ketchup, when after 2 or 3 bits I heard her little voice ask suspiciously, "Is this fi-ish?..." In the end though it was ok, because and I quote "it was the good kind of fish not the kind that Grandma has."

In other happenings, we returned Sunday from spending 5 days at my mom's in Taber with my sister, which was a really nice visit for all of us girls (+Lewis). We are now waiting for it to quit snowing and act like Spring! Here are some pictures of our trip and of the kids from the past week.