Baking Day

Even though the snow was preventing the kids from going to school, it wouldn't be stopping me from doing my marathon baking day in order to prepare treats for the much-deserved staff at Tyson Steele.

I did what I could the night before to set everything out, so that once I woke up, I could get right to task.

My day started about 6am.  I shooed the kids out as much as possible and did my best to just absorb the day - watching my Hallmark movies (and not apologizing for running the volume too high to compensate for the mixer....as it was MY DAY!)

From left to right:  Molasses Cookies, Mounds Bars, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, Cream Cheese Frosted Sugar Cookies, Chocolate-Covered Gummy Bears, Peanut Butter Bark, Snickerdoodles, Cocoa Peppermint Cookies, and Saltine Toffee.

After taking a short break to take Mikayla and her friend, Meg, to and from a Wyld Life Christmas party,  I asked the family to help me out by sorting out cookies and putting them in individual bags for each of the boxes.    It saved me a TON of time - and got the family to be part of the "serving" experience.

It averaged to about nine treats in each bag of each of the 10 varieties.  

And, then, it came down to just loading one of each of the bags in the boxes I got from JoAnne Fabrics.

Nine boxes for the Tyson Steele family- with enough left over for a complete set for the Quigleys, Kenjon, and Drew and Kaela.

That's what the clock said when I finally completed it all and went to bed.  Another "Baking Day" in the books - with perhaps the best quality turn-out (and presentation) yet.  I took lots of notes this year to try to streamline it even more next year and repeat all the "good stuff" I could.  It's exhausting, but really a day I look forward to every year!