Christmas Cookies, but please no peanut butter!

Sunday was Christmas cookie day at our house. I was so exhausted from being in the kitchen all day I'm just now able to get the photos uploaded and posted.

Here are two of my daughter-in-laws, Chasta and Olga (in the apron), with one of my grandsons, Will. What a mess we made. There was flour everywhere. But thankfully my kitchen bar is big enough to completely cover the surface in flour and use as a baking center. I would give anything to have made a picture of Will's eyes when I scattered the flour all over the bar. I guess he was a little surprised I was making a "legal" mess.

I thought the grandchildren would have wanted to help a little more, but it proved to be too much work for them. Here’s sweet Baby Devin who I know couldn't help at all but he was wondering what we were doing. Isn't he the cutest? This is his first Christmas and honestly I think his hat was a little too small for his head -- but it made a really cute photo.

For this year the cookies are made and I will package them to take to the nursing home where my mother-in-law lives. She was one of the unfortunate ones who got very sick from the Peter Pan peanut butter outbreak a couple of years ago. She never fully recovered and is confined to her bed now.

I had the opportunity to testify before a Congressional Committee on Food Safety telling how the peanut butter changed our lives forever. If you google my name, Terri Marshall, it should come up and you can read her story. I also went back to D.C. this past year to lobby for food safety and am happy to say new legislation was passed to protect us all from foodborne illness. At least there is the satisfaction that maybe fewer people will suffer because of our efforts.

Here are few more pictures -- hope everyone enjoys the rest of the holiday week. I have decided I'm much better at decorating trees than I am at decorating cookies.