Baking Gingerbread - Simple Gifts Farmhouse

Baking cookies and treats is always a special activity to enjoy this time of year. The other day the boys and I made some fun gingerbread cutout cookies. We have all sorts of fun cookie cutters; including a snowman, snowflakes, a train, and even a hummingbird. I made a small batch of dough because while baking with little children is fun, it can also be quite a challenge- and a mess! I certainly didn’t want to spend all day or have it take so long that everybody got grouchy. It was just right. We had enough dough to cut out a couple of each shape and we ran out just as the little fellows started getting tired of it. When the cookies were baked we set them aside to cool (and to take a break). Later in the evening we all sat down and painted them with powdered sugar icing. When I was younger and didn’t have children I would have wanted them all to be artistic and perfect. Needless to say I gave that ideal up a long time ago, which is a good thing because now I can do things like this for fun and not worry about it. David had lots of fun spreading the paint on his cookies, Matthew had one to munch on, I made mine as artistic as possible, and we even got Andrew to paint a few!