Gingerbread Cookie Making for the Soul

We actually didn’t have brown sugar and I didn’t feel like getting out of our jammies to buy some, so we made our own.
One tablespoon of molasses added to one cup of sugar.
Ella got pretty excited to make something we simply buy at the grocery store.
The little things.

She wanted to arrange the gingerbread men cookie cutters to make a “cool photo shoot”.

She did all of the above.
She said I should know all of this because “you are a photographer, mom”.
Duh.

She loves hearing stories about her namesake, “Gramma Ella” and how she loved to bake while she was making the dough.
I was telling her about all the great memories I had growing up with her and my mom.
There is just something about listening to Christmas music, making cookies and talking about memories.

I might be biased but I would say those are the best-darned gingerbread men I have seen in a long time.

Because I want her to learn to be independent in the kitchen and with her ADHD, it is a bit more challenging, I left her alone to make several cookies by herself while I was in the same room cleaning out cupboards.

I wasn’t sure how that would go because she gets distracted easily but she kept at it and made an entire cookie sheet of cookies alone.

I would every so often pop over to take a picture and ask if she needed anything but for the most part, she was on her own.

She didn’t stop until she was finished.

And here is the beautiful finished product:

See my sumo wrestler gingerbread man??

I thought after working all morning and afternoon on these cookies she would be done and ask me to finish these.
Nope.
She forged ahead.

We aren’t fancy people.
We used tube icing from the store but making your own is pretty simple too.
I find that any icing I make though turns out runny so today I was ready to use store bought.
I already made my brown sugar WHOA WHOA WHOA.
Baby steps to the homesteading.
Oh and we use spreaders that we use for a dip to ice cookies.
It is so much easier.

Little hands frosting cookies make me so happy.

Our gingerbread cookies.
Maybe you need to make some for yourself today too.