Castles And Cookies

After volunteering for years at the Tridelta Alumni Philanthropy event, Cookies and Castles, I finally got to take my children to the gingerbread-making wonderland.

The last few years, I have brought gingerbread kits home to create in our kitchen.

This year, I decided that Palmer (and Rick) would enjoy visiting the magical candy event and make our gingerbread house on site.

The guys had a theme: green for the boy side and red for the girl side.  Considering we aren't the most creative at this kind of thing, I think the theme and execution was brilliant.

Palmer loved Cookies and Castles and would now like to have his birthday party at "the candy place".  Luckily, there is a darling playground outside the event, so we might just be able to make that happen (sans candy, of course).

On another weekend, my siblings and I went to town on some cookie decorating.

The sweet Cordell family gifted us with the most amazing kit of cookie toppings and we were inspired to spend an afternoon making cookies.

Palmer in a rare pensive mood... (I couldn't believe the cookie decorating kept his attention for well over an hour.)

Or maybe it was the eating that kept him focused...

Thank goodness for Holly and Samantha.  They upped the game on creativity with the cookies.

Meanwhile, Luke was incredibly helpful with the cookies...

What a fun way to end a rough week.  My dear Grandmother died on Sunday.  After a long year of battling Alzheimer's, she had a mini-stroke and passed away.  Everyone in our large family had a chance to say good bye before she died.

Me with my Grandparents and Mom in 1981.

-Bethany