cookie cheats

We love baking and decorating cookies for Santa each year and this year we went all out! I'm almost ashamed to admit it but Christmas this year was a bit crazy. We were headed out of town right after opening gifts and so in the midst of packing and cleaning I attempted to "cheat" on our cookies this year. I went to Wal-Mart with every intention of buying sugar cookie dough from the refrigerated section and bake them up! A quick easy way to leave cookies for Santa. Well, that "quick and easy plan" didn't turn out anywhere near what I had planned. Hmph. When I got to Wal-Mart and made my way to the refrigerated wall-o-cookie-dough the sugar variety was SOLD OUT!!!! I guess everyone in Mustang had the same idea as me because there was no cookie dough to be found! So, thinking I was super clever, I walked to the front of the store, to the bakery, and thought I'd pick up a package of already made sugar cookies...NOPE!! Those were sold out too!! Good grief!! After refusing to believe that there were absolutely NO sugar cookies in the Mustang Wal-Mart and wandering around the bakery section for WAY too long hoping someone had unloaded a package of them in the wrong section I finally gave in and went home to get baking from scratch instead. Grrrr. It seemed super frustrating at the time but, in the end, I'm glad I did. Instead of simple, round sugar cookies we had our classic Christmas shaped cookies. The boys loved them and were excited to get decorating!

Ash is always super precise with his cookie decorating. He carefully spreads on frosting and then places M&M's and sprinkles in perfect precision so that the cookie is decorated to look exactly as it should. A classic. Maddox, on the other hand, uses a TON of frosting and dumps more sprinkles over his cookie than can even stick to the cookie! I think he does it so he can eat all the extra that fall on his plate! Ha!

Like I said, perfect Christmas tree cookie...

and then there's Maddox. You can't even SEE his cookie! Oh believe me, it's under there somewhere!

The boys chose their favorite cookies and we put them under the tree for Santa. And, of course, we left chocolate milk. It's Santa's favorite ya know!!!!

During his school Christmas party, Maddox made "Reindeer food" to leave out for Santa's reindeer on the front lawn. It is a mixture of oatmeal oats and glitter. We spread it all over the front step in hopes that Santa's reindeer would see it and stop at our house FIRST!!!!

Now it's time for mama to snack on the extra cookies while the boys try their hardest to fall asleep so Santa can visit. I love listening to my boys lay in their beds on Christmas Eve. They THINK they're being quiet and THEY think WE think they're trying to go to sleep but they're actually so loud and giddy...but who could interrupt such magical childhood moments. I'm always living through my kids at Christmastime.