Valentine's Day Delayed

Armed with a rolling pin.

Cutting out gingerbread hearts.
Valentine packages to deliver!

Somehow Valentine's Day snuck up on me this year. I typically send photos of the boys out to Grandmas and Grandpas in cards "signed" by Ben and we often make goodies for the crew at Daddy's office. This year it just didn't happen. Ben did make bookmarks for Daddy, Sue, and himself at the Library Valentine party last week and delivered them the same day. He also made a Valentine for Daddy last Friday when we began our quarantine for Sam's cough and fever which turned out to be a double ear infection.

So, by Wednesday Sam was on the mend after being on antibiotics for a couple of days and Ben was clearly needing some outlet for his energy other than just playing with his toys. Not to mention that Ben had not had a rest that had been more than an hour the last couple of days. We decided that cookie making would be the activity of the day.

Just before rest time, I loaded Sam in the backpack, put boots on Ben and myself and we took a "snow hike" across the street to get some butter to make our cookies. We enjoyed the fresh though brisk air and got home in time to mix up a batch of dough for almond butter cookies (imagine a peanut butter cookie recipe with almond butter substituted). We then put together the dough for Ben's favorite gingerbread cookies (Grandma Norma made gingerbread men for Christmas and both boys gobbled them up, then when Grandpa and Uncle Ray came to visit at the end of January they brought an entire bucket of gingerbread men and B's - no S's because that was the one cookie cutter Grandma couldn't find).

I got both boys down for their rest and started baking. In less than an hour Ben was up and ready to roll some dough. I finished baking the almond butter cookies, Ben helped me measure all the ingredients for Snickerdoodles, then we got to work with the gingerbread men, hearts, and stars. Ben did really well rolling the dough on his own....it did get quite thin on one side but was easily fixed and he loved using the cookie cutters.

Thinking about it I realized that this was Ben's first experience with rolled cookies. I don't know how it's possible that he is almost three years-old and just now had a chance to cut his own cookies. I was the kid who grew up with a rolling pin in my hand and probably made rolled cookies at least once every month or two. I can now tease my mom that she was running a sweatshop of little kids making cookies because whenever a holiday would come around she would invite at least a half dozen kids over to make cookies that would then be packaged up and sent off to the college kids we knew including my sister, Pauline. Of course all the helper kids took cookies home too. And looking back, we made A LOT of cookies! Dozens and dozens! And we decorated them too!!!!

I know I've made rolled cookies with Ben before but this really was the first time I've let him hold the rolling pin. I guess I just couldn't get over letting go of the power and accepting that flour would be all over the kitchen. It was all worth it! He had so much fun and was so proud of himself. And Sam slept through the entire process!

Once the cookies were cooled, we packaged them up and delivered them to Daddy's office to everyone for a late Valentine. Oh well, as Brian puts it, everyday is Valentine's Day because you love people every day.