Ladies + Cody Baking Night

As I mentioned last year, one of the holiday traditions that I've come to appreciate more and more each year is baking with a group of wonderful friends that I met while working at Monster. As our lives get busier each year, which on the plus side means we have more to celebrate, I love the fact that we're able to make time to spend a day baking with each other. This goes beyond a mere cookie swap - we bake most of the treats on site while catching up on lives and helping one another out. This year was made even more special with the addition of a little helper, Cody. I can remember when his Mom's belly was 9 (!) months full on the same baking night two years ago.

Everyone pitched in to help me unwrap candy cane and regular milk chocolate kisses:


Cody joined in on the action:


And showed remarkable restraint by not eating a single one! Although, Kelli attributed this to the fact that he probably didn't realize that the kisses were chocolate. :)

As a reward, he was given one of Z's delicious chocolate chunk cookies:

Um, three guesses on how much he liked the cookie:

Before you think that I've devoted most of this post to Cody (it does mention baking in the title) - here are some of the things we made.

Z's famous chocolate chip and chocolate chunk cookies. She also did a batch with white chocolate chips and heath bar bits - yum!

Trays of Heather's oreo truffle balls, before they were drizzled with white chocolate:

My contribution - chocolate cookies with candy cane kisses and peanut butter cookies with milk chocolate kisses - we had a few mishaps since white chocolate melts more quickly than milk chocolate! Problem solved by putting the candy cane kisses in the freezer for a few minutes before topping cookies hot out of the oven:

Z was pretty as a picture in an apron:

Then it was time to introduce Heather and Kevin's (who had just arrived home) babies Daphne and Clyde to Cody, after Cody had literally babbled about "puppies" all afternoon:

I realize this picture makes it look like Daphne was grabbing Cody but they both were really gentle with him, nuzzling his arm and giving him kisses:

Cody loved interacting with the dogs from the safety of his mama's arms:

A group shot at the end of another long baking session. Joy of joys, I got to hold Cody all day and for the picture (how cute is that hat?)

I can't wait until next year's baking session (which will be year five!). Hopefully, I'll be able to host it if we have our own place and a nice kitchen!