One of our favorite Christmas Traditions is coming to the Peaden Home and helping with Christmas Baking. It always reminds me of my very first Christmas with the Peadens: snacking on frozen sugar cookies while playing canasta, eating cheese chip cupcakes with hot chocolate while talking and laughing, the feeling of Christmas being extra special and full of magic within those walls. I didn't realize then the amount of work that it took to make that Christmas magic happen, but I love to be a part of it now. Sue's health has been especially poor this year, but luckily Amy was able to take the day off of work and we were able to make cheese chip cupcakes, chocolate cream cookies, and sugar cookies PLUS Christmas Roll for Christmas Eve and richersweet rolls for Christmas dinner (both to be frozen and reheated). It was a super productive day, although by the end we weren't sure that we'd be able to finish frosting all of the sugar cookies. Thankfully the cavalry arrived when Kevin showed up to help Amy finish frosting the cookies while I cleaned up the dishes/counters in the kitchen.
Caleb is such an observant little boy. He watches things intently and you can see his brain picking apart the details and analyzing exactly what is happening and trying to figure out why. He took turns sitting on Amy and Kevin's lap and just watched them frost the cookies. He didn't reach for them to try to grab them. He didn't want to get his fingers in the frosting. Just sat there, content to be involved and observing what was going on. It was so funny - and so like him.
The kids were champs and did amazingly well the whole day. They were SO happy that Uncle Bruce was in town from New York and I couldn't believe how wiling he was to shower them with basically unlimited attention. They played board games, read books, played hide and seek, and chased each other around all the day long (with only minimal tv-time at the very end). They love their Uncle Bruce and they had a great day.
It was another successful baking day for the books!
