Making Christmas Cookies

I'm no Paula Deen, but I am trying to teach Kyle the basics of baking and cooking. He loves making cookies, so we had quite the day yesterday. I enjoy making my own icing too. Last year, I used ziplock bags and created my own pastry bags--not ideal. I also used regular food coloring--not ideal either. This year, I stood in the baking aisle at Michael's and spent some time studying. I used pastry bags this year and gizmos I had never heard of like couplers and coupler rings! And I used food coloring glaze which doesn't thin the icing. It's way cool! I felt so professional! Ha! One thing I picked up from my Mom is doing a few things from scratch like your own pie crusts and your own icing. So that's what I do too. This is no bragging-session, but more a display of my crazy perfectionism (ask me about the mistake I made TWICE with the icing) What's tubed icing? Well, David likes the stuff in the tub, so yeah, it has its purpose--or when you're short on time, but there's something satisfying about making your own icing. Kyle LOVES that process and enjoys mixing the colors and creating new colors. For that reason alone, I'll continue to make my own Christmas cookie icing. But after hours in the kitchen, I'm glad we're done! Now all we have left to do is eat them! Not a problem here with four cookie monsters.

Makenna enjoyed helping me with laundry and ate the raw cookie dough--she wasn't so interested in rolling it out on her own--way better to just eat the stuff. I'll get some pictures of the finished cookies up later.