Christmas Baking

I had grandiose plans for our Christmas baking this year.  I had a long list of goodies to make and planned on giving out baskets of treats to our friends.  But I've learned that as soon as I plan something, it's pretty much guaranteed to never happen.

We started with some chex mix.  Easy to make, kid friendly and makes the house smell amazing.

Then we made chocolate covered pretzels.  Eli had been asking for some in the store for weeks so I thought he would be excited about making them.

 

And then I turned my back for one minute and Colin started licking the bowl.

So much for keeping the treats germ free.

Then I pulled out the fun stuff; "gingerbread houses" out of rice crispy treats.

Eli actually did the best at decorating and constructing his house.  Alison had to shed some tears that the candy wouldn't stick and Colin continued to lick anything he could.

I thought these would be so cute to put in our baskets and quickly became stressed about them licking their fingers and constantly asking to eat the candy.  Then Ben reminded me that I just set a giant plate of candy in front of them, candy they have never had before, and told them just to neatly decorate.

I went to bed that night feeling pretty terrible that I had spent so much time yelling at them instead of having fun making treats together.  That's not the Christmas memories I want them to have and I definitely want them to want to bake with me next year...so I said "Forget it!" to the baskets and let the kids eat their houses and the chocolate pretzels for breakfast.  They thought it was fun, breakfast was taken care of and hopefully it erases the memory of me saying "stop licking all the candy!"

p.s. the Thomas pj's Colin is wearing in the above picture...he asks to wear them everyday.  PJ wearing obsessions must be a developmental stage in Shear boys.