December 18

I was feeling frisky this afternoon, so the kids and I made gingerbread men!

Any other Christmas, making cookies would be no big deal. But since we're on GAPS this Christmas and our diet doesn't allow any kind of flour or sugar, a simple gingerbread man becomes an expensive exercise in creativity. I found this recipe online, and when it was also suggested by Amber's mom during her Christmas-cookie making event, I figured it was a safe bet and worthy of my (obscenely expensive) almond flour.

Even if the cookies hadn't turned out well, Caleb and Daisy enjoyed the process so much that it would have almost been worth it. The dough was more delicate than I'm used to, so I had to help Caleb transfer the cookies to our cookie sheet. But he was all about cutting them out, and he and Daisy both loved the decorating part.

Since normal icing or sprinkles weren't an option for the cookies, we used raisins and soy-free, dairy-free, gluten-free chocolate chips. I'm pretty sure Daisy ate more raisins than ended up on the cookies, but at least I was smart enough to keep the chocolate chips out of her reach. 

See, in this picture it looks like Daisy is helping decorate a cookie. WRONG! She's snatching raisins off a cookie that Caleb already decorated.

That mischievous smile always gives her away.

Here she's actually helping, though. 

While Caleb decorated, he made up a whole story about how one of the stars (we made ginger stars, too) was the star above the stable where Jesus was born, and this raisin was Mary and this one was Joseph and these were the angels and these raisins over here were the door to Bethlehem and this raisin was the old, tumble-down stable... 

It was really sweet, and I was so happy to hear him re-telling the story of the Nativity with such accuracy.

Because we had several batches of cookies to bake, the kiddos were rewarded pretty quickly for their efforts. 

Can you tell he was excited?

Daisy, planning her attack. Do you see the little gouges in her cookie? Her strategy was to pick out the raisins and chocolate chips first, then eat the cookie.

Caleb ate his gingerbread man's legs first, then made him do a little dance.

Daisy officially likes cookie making.

Her favorite part, though was when I stood up and clapped/dusted the cookie crumbs off my hands. For some reason, she thought that was hilarious and kept saying, "Again! Again!" Love that girl.