Annual Houston Holiday Baking!

It happened!  Hooray!  I was in great doubt that we would be able to get together with Grandma Anne, Aunt Carol and cousin Bailey for our 4th annual family holiday baking day -but we pulled it together and made some super sweet memories.  Just wait, it gets deliciously cute...



Bailey and Carol making Grandma's classic fudge recipe.






Wilder kept us entertained and scared stiff at the same time as he leaped from grandpa's arm chair to the couch several hundred dozen times.



Lovely lady.  She has some of the funniest sayings and interesting stories -like when she and her sister ran a diner near the Canadian border when they were super young, serving all kinds of cross-country travelers and a rich Canadian cowboy/rancher swept Great-Aunt Ruth off her feet, then she got stuck in Canada visiting his family when the US wouldn't let her cross back over due to passport issues.



Somehow Wilder thinks that plain white flour is yummy.  He kept hijacking my sugar cookie rolling spot and sweeping his licked hands over the flour dusted surface.  Yeah, you MAY not want to eat this batch.   Wilder seems to have claimed it.



Really claimed it...



Seriously.



You get my point.



Probably my favorite of the gross shots.  Hahahaha!



Red hots.  Mmmmmmm....



Bailey took some great pictures so it could be documented that, yes, I was really there, too.  Thank you, Bailey!!



Carol, by Bailey.



(by Bailey) Check out Wilder's sprinkle action!  THIS was my favorite part as a mommy- getting to make cookies with my baby boy, something I wrote down before he was born on a list of what I wanted to do with him in the future.  My heart overflowed.  And his sugar intake was OUTRAGEOUS.



(Another awesome shot by Bailey) See?  Sugar, sugar, sugar.



"A little for me, a little for the cookies."



reMOVING the red hots from the cookies.



Divinity.  Another classic Grandma recipe!






"MMMMMMMmmmmm!  Cookies!!"
"Wilder, get your nose off the cookies."
"MMMMMMM!!!!  COOKIES!!"
"Wilder, I said get your face off the cookies."
"MMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!  COOOOOOKIES!!"
"Yes.  Cookies.  No more, cookies, you've had enough."



Divini-don't.



For a glorious finish, packaging up the goodies!



For years Grandma would make and send big packages of divinity and fudge to her children and grandchildren.  Getting to be part of this holiday tradition of her's with my aunt and cousin is priceless to me.  We still use Grandma's original recipes from the late 1950s/early 1960s clipped from newspapers and magazines and taken from church cookbooks.  Thank you, Grandma, for letting us be part of such a special tradition.  It wouldn't have felt like Christmas without our annual baking day!

Merry Christmas Eve Eve!