Monday, December 24, 2007 - Christmas Cookies

**Disclaimer: Just because it ain't proper grammar, correctly spelled, or doesn't follow the rules of English 101, 102, 103, 505, whatever, doesn't make it incorrect (to me, at this particular moment of writing). This is my blog, and if you don't like my construction of sentences, my split infinitives, improper use of grammar, misplaced commas, improperly used semi-colons, etc., don't criticize. And if you happen to be an English teacher and came across my blog accidentally, please feel free to use this as the means of teaching your students the way NOT to write. If you're still offended just get your own blog, and see if you can do any better! But keep coming back, because I'm having lots of fun. I really do know better, I just ain't in the mood to do better! When you get old you just have to make sure the thoughts get written down, proper or im. Since this is mostly as a record for The Little Princess, that's all that counts. If she grows up thinking I'm uneducated, at least she'll know my thoughts, scattered or otherwise, were recorded because of her. So there!**

Recently the little Princesses' mommy decided we should spend today making Christmas cookies with the Little Princess. In preparation for this, I spent yesterday morning trying to find this cute little child-sized pink sil-pat covered rolling pin from Linens'N Things. (Just for Little Princesses' future reference, it cost $9.99 plus a tank of expensive gas!) But you're worth it!

Weeks ago, maybe even months ago, I had tried to plant the seed in Granddaddy's mind, that this would be such a darling little thing to have to use with The Little Princess when she got older and we could make cookies together. Subconsciously I was really trying to convince him that by the time she was old enough to use the little rolling pin, they wouldn't be carrying such a cute little thing anymore, and sweet Little Princess would miss out on a really fantastic experience. That usually works. All I have to do is say it is for The Little Princess and he immediately agrees with me. This time he didn't seem to catch the hint; therefore, he paid for his lack of hearing what I was saying by having to tromp all over the County and beyond trying to find that rolling pin...which we should have bought when I mentioned it...but we didn't...And he knows the rule he always tells me I should follow...buy it now while you want it, or you'll never find it...But he didn't live by that rule the first time I suggested, even practically begged him to suggest I buy it...Anyway, you understand the problem I was dealing with here.

I hadn't told The Little Princesses' mommy about it because I didn't think we would use it so soon, and I wanted it to be a surprise for her as well. Let me insert here another thing. While we were out trying to find the rolling pin (as well as something else to add to Mommy's Christmas present,) she calls on the cell phone. Granddaddy can't keep a secret no matter how hard he tries. When she asked where we were, he immediately tells her, which only makes her question more and more, why, what, etc. (As I write this, I'm beginning to realize just how much of her aunt she has in her!) I really didn't want her knowing what I was doing. I wanted to surprise her, too, as I said, but No, he has to continue talking with me doing the crazy dance with arms swinging, etc. to let him now he is to "knock it off, don't say anything!" You'd have to know him to understand how complicated this can get with him. He just keeps getting himself deeper and deeper into something he should have stayed out of to begin with. (Note to self: Whenever you leave him alone in the store, either confisicate his stupid cell phone, or contact cell phone service and see if you can have in-coming/outgoing calls from anyone but you, blocked until after you're back together again!)

Any-who, since Little Princesses' mommy later came up with the idea of establishing a tradition with Little Princess to make cookies at Christmas, so this was what caused me to set out on my search for that now elusive rolling pin. Granddaddy should have known to encourage me to get it when I first showed it to him, but no, he has to learn the hard way! And he blames me for having to run all over town! Hummph!

Back to the cookie making day. We set up Little Princesses' high chair with a flour-dusted rolling pad, that adorable little rolling pin and some cookie dough as well as some of Grandmomma's prized cookie cutters.
(We had decided a couple of days before that since we would have to chill homemade dough it would be best to try using the bought cookie dough in a roll. Another mental note: homemade dough is probably better. Make in advance and chill. This got very soft and stuck in the cookie cutters as well as on the mats and rolling pin.)

We showed The Little Princess how to use the rolling pin and we started our cookie making adventure. She seemed to really enjoy trying to roll it out in the manner far exceeding the abilities of any other 14 month old.
She had so much fun chewing and teething on the end of that expensive rolling pin, probably as much as she did rolling out the dough.

She was covered with flour on her sweet little face, nose, clothes and anything else that was showing. (Who was supposed to be in charge of making sure the bib was in place for this child? Grandmomma can't do everything, you know! Or to use a favorite quote from my Mama, "I can't do everything and work in the mill all day, too!" What made this so funny was she never worked in the mill. Her parents did when she was younger, but not her. Where did that come from?) Oh, but I digress! Focus, Grandmomma, focus!

At one point Mommy said, "That's your cookie, Grandmomma!" My cookie was supposedly the one The Little Princess had just sneezed on! (Yep, it was captured on film!)
I don't think so, Mommy or Little Princess. That is definitely not Grandmomma's cookie. Grandmomma's very funny when it comes to eating after anyone especially one who has sneezed on the food. That cookie was set aside especially for The Little Princess. She was perfectly happy to eat her own. I think she did it on purpose! (This is the first cookie she cut out.

Oh come on. Now you know you can tell it's a Teddy Bear. After all, that's her very favorite animal at this point in her life. The dough just lost its shape because she had handled it so much.

So, Little Princess decided she would also sample Santa's cookies before leaving them for him for tonight. First the raw dough then the undressed cookies, and finally the decorated ones



There I go again, now I'm putting the ending before the beginning. But let's add some more important stuff before we finish those cookies.

Granddaddy's job was to take pictures. Her Daddy was down in the workshop finishing up the Christmas surprise for both her mommy and the Little Princess. It was my job to help Mommy get things organized and just be an assistant, whenever I could.

I turned around to make sure Granddaddy was doing his job (Yes,supervising was another of my jobs. I was a very busy woman.) and there he stands, camera hanging, draped around his neck, his mouth open, staring while The Little Princess makes her cookies. Granddaddy got so caught up in the whole cookie-making affair that he stopped making the pictures. Now who can just stand there and not get pictures of a first-time, memory-making experience such as this for a little girl? Ummm, can we say "Granddaddy"?

So that "poor granddaddy" didn't miss the real-life moments, Mommy called Little Princesses' Daddy up from the workshop to take pictures (after all, he had nothing else to do and hadn't been staying up until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning working on this project for the past few weeks. Surely he can stop and take a few hundred pictures,) and in the meantime, in order to keep from missing some great moments granddaddy was supposed to be getting, I grabbed the camera and started taking my own pictures. We only took 692? with my camera and I don't know how many her Daddy and Mommy finally took with theirs. By the way, Mommy, I need copies of those. There might be some shots that look better from Daddy's point of view!

If you look at those pictures on the computer and zip by them fast enough they look just like a movie! So funnnny. Keep that camera rolling, you might miss just the right one!

Back to Granddaddy...Oh stop it! Stop feeling so sorry for "poor granddaddy". That's why he's so difficult to handle. You people keep feeling so sorry for "poor granddaddy".

You can still capture the moment while you're looking through the lens of the camera! Oh, please! I think my granddaughter needs to give her Granddaddy some of those "focus, please, look-at-me-Granddaddy" looks she gives me!

Little Princess had a wonderful time making those cookies, and so did the rest of us. We(I) cooked them and then we decorated them after they were finished. She had plenty of patience waiting until we got them cut out, pried them from the cookie cutter, cooked and got them ready to decorate. See how alert she was during the whole thing?

She had oh so much fun helping Mommy pipe the icing out onto the cookies.

It did require some of Mommy's help since it takes a bit of pressure to get the frosting out of the bag, but Little Princess did help. She would grab a cookie as soon as Mommy frosted it for Santa, pick at the icing, and plop it into her little mouth. My what a sugar high she probably had after we left! Oh, and she had cookie dough hanging from one or both of her little ears in little tiny balls that made her ears appear to be pierced!

Oh yeah, now I remember, my other jobs were to (a) bake the cookies (in case I haven't aleady said that) , (b) take them out, (c) and clean up all that mess in the kitchen

while Little Princess and her mother disappeared to the back for a nap for Little Princess. Or at least Mommy attempted to get her down.

But before that, the funniest part was cleaning up The Little Princess. Mommy and Granddaddy were standing holding Little Princess over the trash can so Mommy could shake her off and clean her up without a lot of trouble.


Now those were precious pictures. You say Grandmomma got pictures? Of couse, as you can see above. Poor Little Princess didn't even complain. She really didn't know what they were doing, I don't think, so she just went along with it.

After all was said and done, Santa had cookies on his plate for Christmas Eve.
He must have eaten them all because the next day when we went over, there were plenty of crumbs on the table where he had devoured them!

One little footnote: Little Princess had an outbreak on her little face. Now since this was store-bought dough, I don't think it would have been from eggs in the dough. I don't think they put raw eggs in store-bought cookie dough, so there may have been something else working on her there besides the eggs.)

It was fun,

until now...

Another little thought to add here: When The Little Princess visited Santa for this years photo shoot, Mommy had envisioned her precious angel sitting nicely in his lap as she looked into his bearded face and stroked it lovingly, smiling all the while. Well, sometimes what we envision comes out a bit differently from what we get. Little Princess screamed anytime she was near Santa and those dreams fell through. However, I have to say the cookie making episode went quite well. We couldn't have asked for better. Good job, Little Princess. I was proud of you.

Even if we didn't build a single memory for The Little Princess we certainly captured a few for ourselves. It doesn't always have to be about The Little Princess, does it?