t-6 days

Let the Christmas countdown begin! There are 6 shopping days until Christmas, how are you spending them? Me? I plan on wrapping, cleaning, wrapping, catching up with old friends, cleaning, and cooking my tail off.
I mentioned on Friday that I was going to spend Sunday baking with my family. A full day of beating, mixing, laughing and eating. It was really awesome. I can't even begin to describe how thankful I am to have such an awesome family. I made cookies on Friday and Saturday too. It seems like I'd have far too many but I give away A LOT of cookie trays. We give them to Mike's family (4 separate houses) and a bunch of different friends. I think I made 12 cookie trays over the course of the weekend. Since there is an abundance of cookie recipes hanging around my house, I'll be sharing them with you all week long. Check back later for my kickoff recipe, the NYT chocolate chip cookies!
Sunday was spent surrounded by my favorite people. The best part about it was sharing the traditions that I had growing up with my grandmother with my younger cousins who never met her, or who are too young to remember her.

jackon, 3, appears to have dug into the cookies before they were ready!

jaclyn, 10, telling her dad she's "gonna get him" with her cookie hands!

she apparently gets prettier every day.

my sister and twiglette (that's what we call the baby!)

working hard on making snowballs, recipe to follow this week.

tom, the only male helper we had!

seriously gorgeous ladies

devan helping jackson "rake" the powdered sugar, he was shoveling snow!

sisters! they get mistaken for each other all the time.

my mom gets mistaken for them too and she married into the family!

sisters...again!

Don't forget to check back later for my review on the famous NYT chocolate chip cookie recipe!!