Gingerbread Men

Yes, it's that time of year when I dig out my old gingerbread men recipe from a very old (like as old as me) copy of A Berenstain Bear's Christmas. I'm not sure why they put a gingerbread recipe in a children's book 30+ years ago, but my parents and I have been making that recipe my whole life, so I'm not gonna switch now. This year was different from any other year though because I had a helper of my own in the kitchen. M was super excited about making some gingerbread men after watching Shrek 2 yesterday (because there's a gingerbread man in it). He broke the egg, stirred in all the ingredients, helped me roll out the dough, cut out the shapes, and decorated the cookies mostly by himself! I had to help a bit when the dough stuck to the counter (think deformed cookie men), but I was really impressed at what a little baker he is becoming. With a bit more practice, I will have my own personal chef in a few years - hey, a girl can dream right? When the cookies were all decorated I expected M to eat the whole plate, but he didn't. He took the plate down to Chris and E, telling them, "I have a surprise for you!" When he came back up he loaded up another plate and took it down to Chris and E again. I finally told him he could sit down and have a cookie himself. THEN he ate the whole plate. But it was very sweet of him to serve E and Daddy first.
We spent the rest of the day huddled up in our nice warm house listening to Christmas carols, playing, reading, and watching movies because it's too windy and icy to go outside. We got 1/2 inch of ice yesterday after about four inches of snow. When we left to go to the pool this morning we had to take a running start to get out of our cul-de-sac, and we almost hit a mailbox on the other side of the road as we shot out of the crunchy unplowed snow and onto the icy road. The boys thought it was funny to hear us screaming as the mailbox loomed ever closer...but we gained traction just in time. Gotta love the first snowstorm of the year.