Props

Ok, I think I failed to mention all the baking I did in preparation for Christmas. I feel I need to give myself a pat on the back for it too. You see, I am NOT a baker. I think things like that are best left to my dad and my neighbor Amy, who is forever baking something yummy and leaving it on my back porch. (Can I just take a minute to tell you how awesome it is having a neighbor like this? This girl bakes the yummiest treats and is always sharing them with us, I'm so lucky to have moved into the house right behind hers)

Ok, back to me now. Like I said, I don't bake. I like to cook, don't like to clean up the mess I make, but I've never really enjoyed baking. I don't think my stuff turns out as well as it should, and I can't pull off presentation points. I am the queen of appetizers really. You need me to make a dip, or appetizer for a party, I'm your girl, just don't ask me to make something sweet. Also, desserts don't really get eaten in my house. We are an odd family, I know, we aren't big on the desserts. Marc likes chocolate chip cookies. Period. End of story. Those I can make relatively easily (and no, I'm not talking about the slice and bake kind), regular old Tollhouse Chocolate Chip cookies, although I swear they are better without the chocolate chips, but I digress. And the kids will eat maybe half of their slice of cake at their birthday parties, but after that, they're done and don't really care for it again, so there's really no point in me putting all this time and effort into baking.

Well, this Christmas I made a promise to myself that I was going to bake all the cookies that we put out for Santa. In years past, I've used whatever we had leftover from friends goodie bags, or what my dad made around the holidays. I think our first few Christmas's we didn't even do cookies for Santa because Andrew really wasn't old enough to know we were supposed to and our Santa still seemed to come without the cookies and milk. So this was the year for me to break out and be "that" mom. You know the one that bakes lots of yummy treats for the family to have over the holidays and there's always extras for Santa? (Just to clarify, I didn't grow up with "that" mom either, I had "that" dad though, so it really all worked out great, and since I didn't forsee Marc stepping up to take over that roll, it was really up to me). I got a recipe from Amy (remember her? awesome betty crocker neighbor?), and one from the MOMS Club party where we brought cookies to share, and of course the staple chocolate chip cookies. The one from Amy was a chocolate/butterscotch cookie, it didn't disappoint either, delicious! The one from the MOMS Club was probably my favorite and one of the easiest as it didn't really involve "baking" anything. All I had to do was heat up some chocolate to dip the peanut butter sandwiched by two Ritz crackers into. Now that's my kind of baking! No oven needed!

I still don't consider myself a baker, per se, but I think I made a giant leap this year, now I have until next Christmas to figure out how I'll top it......