Christmas Cookies

In just two days we will be leaving for Georgia to visit my in-laws, but for the last few days I've been frantically trying to bake half batches of several different kinds of cookies to take with us on our trip (we'll be driving-ugh). The above cookies are a new venture for me this year. I got them from The Pioneer Woman Cooks. They are a slightly sweet, very soft cookie with a colored egg wash. After you bake them, you add a powdered sugar/milk/egg white frosting to accent. Her's were much prettier to look at than mine, but my children helped with the painting of these cookies and my icing was too thick and hard to squirt out of my piping tip to really make it do what I wanted. As far as eating, I really enjoyed these cookies, as I'm not fond of very sweet sugar cookies. These were just the right amount of sweet for me. If you like a very sweet sugar cookie, these are not for you.

In addition to the above cookies, we made chocolate chip, shortbread, chocolate peanut butter chip, Oatmeal raisin (my husband's favorite), oatmeal scotchies and Chocolate Peppermint Drops. The chocolate peppermint drops were a new favorite from last year. This is only the third time I'm made them. They are very good right out of the oven and the first time I made them they were moist, brownie like and wonderful. My husband and I agreed they were a fairworthy cookie and I saved some candy canes to replicate them this past year at the fair. Unfortunately they were not fairworthy when I made them a second time. They were fine right out of the oven-delicious even, but by the next day they were awful. They were chewy and just wrong. So of course I didn't enter them. Although not awful, they weren't as wonderful this time either. Better tasting, but still chewy and kind of tough. Luckily we ate a bunch right out of the oven and since I only made about 2 dozen, they are almost gone.

I've been trying not to eat too many as anything sweet has made me very ill this pregnancy. I will say though the Pioneer Woman's sugar cookies have been worth the risk. Maybe because they aren't too sweet? All I know is that I just ate four and hope to go to bed in the next 15 minutes or so before the resulting nausea hits me. I think it's okay to eat four at one time since I found out I lost 3 pounds at my midwife appointment and it's a bit too early for me to be losing weight. So I'm just trying to play catch up. At least that's my story. :)

One last parting shot of my youngest Claire. She was very quiet this past Saturday and I wondered what she was doing. She filled up a laundry tub with sheets of stickers, sat inside the tub and proceeded in applying the stickers to the inside of the tub. Why can't they do anything like just read a book when they're off being really quiet? At least now we have a very decorative laundry tub-on the inside anyway.I hope everyone has a nice couple of weeks. I will be glad when we're back from Georgia. Except for all the smocking and knitting I will have a chance to do, along with a date or two with my husband, I don't enjoy the trip very much. My children, on the other hand, love going to visit my husband's family, so I will have to let that be good enough for me! Happy Holidays!!