You May Not Want to Read This Post...

if you live in our neighborhood and were the recipient of some cookies today, because the following photographs may cause you unease.  (Mr. Brian, that means you.)

I think that the holiday season is hardly celebratory if there is not baking of some sort going on at some time.  This year, however, with things as they are, I have not baked a thing, and have barely even cooked anything worth writing about (or even eating, if we want to get really honest here).

I was feeling kind of down about that because I really do like to cook, bake and can, until I ran across a blog posting somewhere that said the following:

If it's going to make you yell don't do it!

I am sorry that I don't remember where I saw that so that I can give full credit where credit is due, but I will say that I took this lady's words to heart.

And I knew that trying to bake or cook or can would make me yell at someone somewhere, so I decided to let it all go and not even try and instead spend the tiny amount of energy and patience I had on other things.

And Christmas came and went and New Year's came and went and the kitchen saw no action, but there was also a sense of calm because I wasn't feeling pressured to produce tasty wonders in the kitchen.

But then, on my last trip to the grocery store, I saw those cookies that are in the boxes that all you have to do is open the box, put the cookies on the cookie sheet and pop them in the oven and I though that I could handle that, so I picked up a few boxes.

Today, we finally had the chance to actually break open the packages and cook them.

Everyone lent a hand...

...even Jesse, although he had a hard time understanding that you were supposed to line the cookies up on the pan and he kept grabbing them and trying to stack them like blocks.

And then the cookies went into the oven...

and in 10 minutes, we were done!

Now, it's not quite the same as mixing, rolling and cutting the cookies out and decorating them with care, but hey, there was no yelling going on except for from the kids who were absolutely enjoying themselves and probably didn't care or even really notice that the cookies weren't made from scratch!

Then, we bagged some of them up and passed them around to the neighbors (Miss Eva, you weren't home when we came by!)

And then...

it started to snow.  Big, fat flakes coming down and covering everything.

What could be better than a house smelling of cookies, kids feeling accomplished and happy for sharing the cookies they made,

and Hazel Grace here to share it all with us and to watch her first snowfall through the same window that her brothers and sisters watched theirs!

So, it may be late, but the heart's still there, and we are blessed, oh so very blessed!

Merry Christmas!