Gingerbread Cookies

I meant to post this like a week ago, but better late than never. I don't regret it either. I enjoyed a fantastic week-long stay with my family. We got to visit my family, my husband's family (including his grandfather that I hadn't seen in 3 years), and old friends.

For this visit, I made (for the first time) gingerbread cookies for my mom. She really likes gingerbread cookies so it was a no-brainer. Even better, Bakerella recently posted a recipe! Her decorations were adorable!! I would've loved to do that but (1) I don't have her large selection of sprinkles and (2) I didn't have that kind of time. I was surprised I managed to get them decorated. "Fortunately," I couldn't sleep the night before we left, so I stayed up and decorated them.

I just got these sprinkles and since I didn't have the time to color icing and swap back and forth, I piped in white and then sprinkled with sprinkles! I think they were perfect for snowflakes.  

I had to make gingerbread men/women! C'mon, it's gingerbread! I should've thought ahead and made one for each member of my family.

I really liked this recipe. It was really easy to work with.

Appealing???

 Ready to bake

Turned out quite nicely. The only challenge with baking gingerbread cookies is that it's hard to tell when they're done. I wanted them soft. I don't like crunchy gingerbread. I managed to not burn any and most were soft! Pretty successful for the first time.

So it's 2012... goodness things in 2012 seemed so far away. Now everything is going to be here before we know it!! Such as the annual cake competition in February! I've done it the past 2 years. I really look forward to it. I've got to figure out what kind of cake I'm going to do. So if you guys could give me some ideas, that'd be fantastic!! The theme is "Grandma's Attic." I need to come up with an idea soon. Any suggestions?? What's in your Grandma's attic?? There are raccoons in my grandma's attic! But I'll keep thinking... :)