T minus one week until Christmas, but who’s counting! This past weekend Danny and Ray we’re out of town so Denver and I had quite the girls weekend. Friday night we went to the Christmas tree lighting and sat on Santa’s lap. Denver had a blast with her friends and LOVED Santa!

Saturday’s our friends came over for a day of baking. We make coconut macaroons, gingerbread from scratch, white chocolate popcorn and sugar cookies for the girls to decorate. I happened to be out of red food coloring so we went with a pink and mint color scheme this year! I picked up some Sweetapolita Sprinkles from Suga Mama’s Bakery and they are were to die for!

I laid out all the frostings and decorations and the girls went to town! It was so much fun, and they turned out adorable!

We finished the weekend with The Nutcracker performance at our local theater! Denver wore her new Sugarplum Fairy Gang tutu from the Wishing Elephant and took her very own nutcracker of course. The girls were mesmerized! We finished the day playing in the rain and getting daddy from the airport!

With all the baking done and because this is the last week of ballet and school, teacher gifts had to be executed! I was really torn on what to do, Denver has so many amazing teachers I wanted to do something for everyone! So I decided for her ballet teacher and assistant teachers to do cookies and a recipe! I filled mini mason jars with the gingerbread cookies we made and paired it with the recipe so they could make their own! This recipe was given to me by my step mom and it’s my FAVORITE Christmas cookie EVER!

For her main teachers I’ll do the same thing but add an ornament Denver and I made together! We simply took clear fillable ornaments and filled them with Studio Pep confetti and felt balls! They turned out so cute. I always have so much fun gifting and these turned out cute and yummy!

Now to cram in all the wrapping, Christmas movies and last minute shopping! Here’s to a fun, festive week!

Xo

Kelsey

I’m getting some requests for the gingerbread recipe so I’ll share that here !

•Combine dry ingredients

4 cups of flour

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp ginger

1/4 tsp cloves

2tsp cardamon

3 tsp cinnamon

1tsp nutmeg

•In another bowl Combine

1/2 cup shortening (butter flavored crisp)

1/2 cup butter (softened)

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 dark molasses

2 eggs

2T tangerine zest – this makes it SO good

•Slowly add dry ingredients into wet

•divide into 4ths- roll – flatten into discs

• wrap each disc in plastic wrap and chill for 1-2 hours

• once the drought is chilled roll and cut

Bake at 350 for 9-10 minutes

** these are so delicious I do nothing to them, no frosting or anything!

Tag me if you make them, I’d love to see!