Graham Cracker Houses

The past few years I've had difficulty getting into the Christmas spirit. I'm not quite sure why that has been, but I have decided that this year, that will just not do. So, I am jumping head first into Christmas. I have some Christmas Shopping done, including all of my stocking stuffers. For those of you in search of some cool stocking stuff, check out the $1 bins at Michaels and Target. I got some really fun stuff for the girls and hardly spent anything. This weekend I decided what better way to get into the Holiday spirit than a little baking.

The girls and I made graham cracker houses Saturday evening. I bought a box of graham crackers and made 2 lbs of frosting (I wasn't sure how much they would waste). We had a blast, but had some difficulty with our frosting holding up. It took us a while, but after about 5 crashed houses a piece, we finally got the roofs to stay on. The girls did very well with all the crashes, and Kinsley only got frustrated when her M&M roof broke in two, thereby rendering it useless and having to start over. Karly decorated hers all by herself, and much to my surprise I didn't even have to instruct her on how to do it. I looked over and she was dipping M&M's and gumdrops into the frosting with no help at all.

Karly's Graham Cracker House

Kinsley's Graham Cracker House

After the girls went to their dad's house yesterday and Juliana laid down for a nap, I made sugar cookies to use up the rest of the frosting. I still have about half of it left, so the girls and I will be making a lot of cookies this week. After years of experimenting, I have finally found the perfect sugar cookie recipe, one that is not too sweet and holds it's shape when baking cut out cookies. In addition I made some snowball cookies and homemade truffles. I love to bake, but I hate having all those sweets around my house, so I took them all to church last night. I'm guessing they were good because I brought home empty containers.

I hope that you all are having a Wonderful Holiday Season thus far!