Bake Day or "Do you really want to eat these goodies?"

For ten years or so we have had a Bake Day tradition going on. What it amounts to is all us women-folk getting together the Saturday before Christmas to try to bake Christmas goodies. We had two grandkids to contend with on our first bake day. Now there are 10. Nine of the ten made it to this bake day. Can you say Oh My God! By the time we had baked all of our goodies, the kitchen floor was downright dangerous to walk on it was so full of flour. We could hace hosted a dance or something. My dear hubby and son took pity on us women and stuck around to help - for that I am extremely grateful!

Traditionally I try to have something special for my daughters and daughter-in-law. This year deciding on a gift was easy. Our church published a cook book this year and the cover just happened to be the original drawing hubby Jim made that the stained glass window in our church was based on.

I think they really like the cookbook. (son's wife, Alicia, Tessa and Julie) It was wrapped in a decorated kitchen towel.

We just happen to have a Christmas Tree in our bathroom (doesn't everyone?). I didn't quite get all of the decorating done, so my sweet eleven year old granddaughter, Emily, decorated it for me. Thank you Em!

Thirteen month old Reagan is the youngest of the grankids. I tried and tried to get a good picture of her and she just would NOT cooperate. She was a doll all day. And she was the only child there who did not leave germs on the cookies, lol. You'll see what I mean by that as the pictures continue.


This is another picture of Emily. Now she is washing dishes! It seems like she grew up overnight. Just a year or two ago she was making messes with the rest of the grandkids.

Allen, Anna and Dakota spent more time eating than they did helping. I guess they had to keep their strength up for all the hard work.

Travis is twelve and is usually full of mischief. He was so intent on decorating those pretsels that he forgot to cause trouble :)

Now to the messy part of the day. SUGAR COOKIES!

Cara takes over the rolling pin while all the younger ones wield the cutters. Going to stop and tell a story or two here.

See that rolling pin? Many years ago Jim gave that to me as a Christmas present. He wrote a wonderful poem to go with it that basically told me not to use it on him. Dang I'm going to have to find that poem back! He had a local bakery order it for me because I baked so much that I had bent the cheap dime store rolling pin I had. I've always had a thing for making yeast breads and rolls and stuff.

The littles one in the picture below is Austin. He couldn't seem to help himself - everytime he cut a cookie out he had to lick the cutter and we'd wash it. He finally got to the point whee he would cut out a cookie and then hand us the cutter and say "this needs washing", whether he licked it or not - he had me laughing so hard.

Decorating the sugar cookies was a hoot. We had icing and sprinkles everywhere! The cookies will have a sign on them that says "kid baked and decorated - eat at your own risk"

The kids ate and licked their fingers through the day (hence the warning).

Austin is cleaning up the remainis of the Chex Mix (see those cold tootsies there). We ended up with six bags of that stuff! No calories there.

Cara is my sweetheart. Even though she is nine, she still takes time to snuggle with me everytime we are together. She just curls up next to me and says "Grandma, we need our snuggle time"

Like I said, they ate their way through the day. Cara eating.

See Anna licking her fingers? She is getting ready to pick up more sprinkles. The moisture helps ya know. (Allen looks shocked lol). That is my son, Greg to the left there.

James drank his way through the day. It didn't matter a bit who the soda can belonged to either. He was an equal opportunity mooch.

Ah! I even caught Emily in the act!

What did we bake? Massive amounts of Chex Mix, four batches of fudge, 6 batches of molasses cookies, 3 batches of sugar cookies, 4 batches of chocolate chip cookies, and a bunch of dipped pretzels. Hmmmmm I think I forgot something, but that is enough.

Damn I'm a lucky lady!