McKinstry Moments: Run, Run As Fast As You Can

Some shoppers chose to wait for the thrill of the Christmas Eve rush to buy their final gifts, but the McKinstry family had their presents purchased weeks ahead of time. As a result, the day before Christmas was a pretty laid back one for us. I took Reid to have some pictures taken to get a free trilogy frame I had a coupon for, and Dave kept the other two kids at the house. Since we had a few new toys that had been opened already, even staying home had its perks though. Caleb spent a good chunk of his time focused on his "Marbulous" marble run, which has gotten to be pretty impressive thanks to his engineer daddy.

That night though, we were planning to go out for a party at my Aunt Debbie's. For as long as I can remember, the Vaught side of my family has celebrated Christmas Eve together with a big dinner at someone's house. Last year was the first time I can ever remember it being canceled, but due to snow, everyone spent the evening at home instead. As it approached this time around, I was looking forward to the family time and wonderful food. I had the kids' outfits picked out, knew what food I was going to bring, and even planned to bring the kids some pjs so they could fall asleep on the way home. Sadly though, my plans were thwarted due to all those wintery germs sneaking about trying to pull down our Christmasy fun. While my own kids were healthy, their cousins had everything from colds to the flu and from Bronchitis to Pneumonia. Dave, too, came down with something the night before which was even worse the next morning.

Taking care of three littles is hard enough, but when all of us are sick, things get really hard, so I wasn't sure I wanted to risk it. I debated back and forth if we should go as a result, especially since Reid is so little and hasn't had all the immunizations the other two have. In the end, although I was a bit disappointed and didn't want to let anyone else down by telling them we weren't coming, I had to make the good protective mommy choice to stay in for the evening and hope everyone would be on the mend the next day. My cousin Stacey also chose to keep her kids home to let them recuperate overnight, so I felt a little better that we weren't the only ones staying put for the evening.

When it was all said and done, this turned out to be a good idea anyway because Reid was a bit cranky as the night progressed. The evenings are usually his fussy time of day, and we are always a bit leery of evening outings for that reason. Between acid reflux and fighting sleep, he can get pretty cross, so we might not have added much to the party anyway.

We didn't miss out on all the festive activities though. The McKinstrys had some good Christmas-time fun of their own thanks to a last minute purchase I made on my outing with Reid earlier in the day. Knowing how much fun Caleb had making a gingerbread house last year, I swung into Michaels hoping to find another kit. They were sold out of the large houses, but to my surprise, I found a box of miniature ones as well as set of gingerbread men marked down to 70 percent off. What a deal!

I know what you are probably thinking: "This lady is nuts giving a three-year-old and one-year-old candy, cookies, and icing to play with." And, you are right....but we had a good time!

Hadley: "Put some icing on mine, Mommy."

Someone was more interested in eating her cookie than decorating at first.

No cookie decorating event is complete without a little drama, is it? Maybe her gingerbread person tried to run away!

Guess he wasn't quick enough

After Mommy demonstrated, she finally learned not to lick all her icing off before putting the decorations on.

Once she got the hang of it, she stuck her candy on and then immediately pulled it back off to eat it.
(Taste must be more important than presentation in her opinion.)

Caleb did a really nice job decorating this year, and he kept most of the candy pieces from rolling off on to the floor.

The icing bag was still too hard for him to do solo, but Mommy was nearby to help.

Dave tried his hand at the icing too.

Hadley just kept chewing on her cookie's head.

Getting creative!

Dave and I made cookies of ourselves. Mine is on the left and his the right.

Next, I made a person with thick curly hair which Caleb said had to be NaNa because he is always telling her she has "crazy hair." (See pic on the right)

Thanks to some cooking magazines my mom has, Caleb has a strong interest in Paula Deen. He doesn't know about all the news controversy from the past year; he just likes looking at all the good food in her books. So, while we were making the cookies, a conversation about whether Paula Deen makes gingerbread cookies started, and it wasn't long before he wanted me to make a gingerbread Paula Deen. I tried my best to create this celebrity cookie for him as gave me lots of pointers about exactly how she should look. Take a peek at the cookie on the left. How did I do?

While we were busy with that, Dave began making the small houses.

We learned last year that this part is for parents only, and even then it's a difficult task. Instead of letting Caleb get frustrated when it wouldn't stand up, Dave was the one sighing as the houses fell apart a few times and had to be reconstructed. While it sounds good in the story books, for the record, we are going to recommend no one try to build their homes out of gingerbread and icing.

We moved on to the next set of cookies to decorate.

Since we had a NaNa, we needed a Pop too. My dad is bald on top, so Caleb said he just needed a little hair on the back of his head. I tried to get him to understand that we couldn't put icing on the underside of the cookie, just on the front and sides. Then, I tried to put a Carhartt shirt on him but ran out of room. Regardless though, I think it does kind of resemble my daddy. Do you agree?

Caleb: "This is crazy me."

Reid slept through most of the action, but he woke up for about two seconds for me to take a picture. He's cuter than any cookie. :)

Hadley was getting so filled up on icing, cookies, and candy, that I had to think of something else to feed her, especially since it was approaching bed time. CHEESE! Thankfully, we had some shredded cheddar handy in the fridge.