Christmas Eve

This year, we celebrated Christmas in Declo with Shaun's parents, his brothers, their wives and their kids.  Our crew is getting pretty big now- it's so much fun!  

Christmas Eve was really fun- we made pizzas for dinner.  Which the boys loved doing- they got to make their own and put on it whatever they wanted.  For some reason they were super excited about that part- even though they only like cheese on their pizza.  I guess it was really really fun to lay out the cheese exactly the way they wanted it.  

 We also made some sugar cookies for the kids to decorate before they went to bed.  These are the cookies they left out for Santa- so they HAD to be good!  Jacki was nice enough to let me take over her kitchen again so that I could make some gluten free sugar cookies.  We had toyed with the idea of just making regular ones- but really- I couldn't pass up the opportunity for cookies!  I mean come on!  Christmas cookies are one of the best parts of Christmas eve!

 We made Christmas trees, circles and stars and lots of frosting!

 And... were they good!?  Ty thought so!  Me too actually.  These particular cookies were the result of a lot of trial and error in the kitchen during the month of December.  I threw away more batches than I care to admit.  When baking G-Free, you can't just substitute one cup of rice flour for one cup of wheat flour- you have to mix different types of flour in order to get the taste and texture that you want.  I have been taking a lot of classes on re-learning how to cook and bake so that I am not getting sick any more- and it's been rough.  But like I said- I finally found a recipe that didn't fall apart in my mouth and actually tasted like a cookie.  My family thought they were good and that's good enough for me!