Making Memories, one cookie at a time...

Family traditions have a way of contributing to some of our fondest memories.

One of my favorite memories from growing up is making sugar cookies that we would cut out in shapes that celebrated a particular season.  In the Fall, we would use cookie cutters that resembled fall leaves, and when Christmas was nearing, we would get out our favorite "yuletide" cookie cutters and enjoy a sugar-filled day!

 

Traditions this wonderful should continue.  So it was, that on a fine November afternoon, my girls and I proceeded to make our "Fall Sugar Cookie Cut-outs."

The girls were so excited to bring their culinary expertise into the kitchen.  They were quite confident in their baking skills, as was I.

 

Jack was close by, offering his services as an expert food taster.  And, they tolerated his frequent tasting!

 

 Tiny hands working with cookie dough... I love the memories that it brings to my mind.

So many times when my little hands were next to my Mother's capable hands, helping in any way I was allowed to!  Snitching little bits of dough.  Enjoying time together as a family.  And, let's face it, time with family is only enhanced when sugar is involved!

 

These are the moments I want my kids to remember.  The snippets of time when nothing mattered except learning the fine art of having fun.

 

Where cookie dough tasting and flour dusted faces represent something much more significant..."togetherness."

 

And, then, years down the road, they too will enter their kitchens, with their little ones in tow.

And, they will smile, remembering just as I did this day, how perfect of a moment this will be.

 

It's not always the expensive toy you splurged on that they will remember.  Instead, it's the time you spent helping them to see just how important they are to you.

 

My Mom spent those special moments with me, and I learned something valuable from it...

 

 ...when you discover you have the stickiest of stickiest hands, and there is an abundance of giggles, you know.

It's been a good, cookie-baking, memory-making kind of day.