Sugar Cookies

This morning shortly before dawn, Ali slipped quietly downstairs and turned on cartoons. I asked her if she wouldn't rather sleep in, and she said, "No, I always get up at this time." So much for sleeping in on a holiday! I decided I might as well get in my workout before the others woke up. So I did 30 minutes of stairs. Megan and Nathan are really set up for stair workouts with four flights of eight stairs each.

Kaitlyn got up at about 7:15 and Max woke up shortly after 8:00 a.m. We had breakfast, then I hopped in the shower, while Ali and Kate watched Max. We played Twister, then I gave them their little gifts (more workbooks), and they worked on them for a while. Ali has really enjoyed the High School Musical "mad libs" book. We have had fun asking each other for parts of speech, then reading the crazy paragraphs we came up with!

Later in the morning we decided to watch the DVD I had brought, "The Velveteen Rabbit." So Ali, Kaitlyn, and Max settled into the oversized leather chair with a comforter and their workbooks, while I popped some popcorn. They said they were allowed to eat it in the living room if they were very careful--which they were, including Max! We all enjoyed the movie.



After the movie, Max decided to give us a little shoe fashion show. He really loves wearing other people's shoes!


I discovered that Ali and I share a love of photography. She showed me the great shots she had taken at the zoo with Nathan's and Megan's "old" camera. She took lots of shots this afternoon. (Note that Kaitlyn has updated her outfit since this morning.)


After we put Max down for his nap, Ali and Kaitlyn and I set about making sugar cookies. They did a great job! They participated at every stage of the process: measuring, dumping, mixing, rolling, pressing out shapes, frosting and decorating. They didn't even snitch without asking. Impressive! We made about five dozen soft, delicious sugar cookies. They reminded me of the ones Camille made once on Valentines Day from Barbara's recipe.





Ali and Kaitlyn took a couple plates of cookies over to the neighbors behind us, then stayed to play for a half hour or so while I cleaned up and then woke up Max (thank goodness for naps). I put him in what looked like a new designer outfit because the Carlsons (the other grandparents) had invited us over for dinner. Big mistakes: Not hiding the cookies before Max came down (they were on the counter top, but he knows how to climb up) and dressing him in that new outfit before giving him a cookie with chocolate frosting. I did have the presence of mind to send everyone outside to eat the cookies, so I preserved the clean floor, but lost out on the shirt. I quickly took it off and rinsed out the chocolate, so there was no permanent damage, but the substitute shirt wasn't nearly as stunning :).

I was very grateful that Grandma and Grandpa Carlson had invited us over for dinner, because I was pretty much done in the kitchen after nearly four hours of sugar cookie making. Dinner was delicious and I enjoyed catching up with Rick and Sheila. Our children all have such great in-laws, which isn't surprising since they chose great spouses!