A Cookie Tradition

For as long as I can remember, we have made big heart shaped cookies for Valentine's Day. My mom would put everyone's name on a cookie and we got to decorate them with different kinds of candy. I loved this tradition so much that I have always made sure that I do it with my kids as well. One thing I have grown to appreciate about my mom is how much work she put into making holidays and birthdays fun for us. It is a lot of work to make the cookies and clean up the messes. I find myself not wanting to deal with all of it sometimes, and I catch myself thinking that the kids would never notice if I left some activities undone...Then I remember how many good memories I have of this type of stuff; I want my kids to have those memories as well. So, like all moms, I sacrifice; which turns out not to be a sacrifice after all because I love seeing how happy it makes my girls and I have fun doing it too.














This is Charlee's "cheese smile". I keep trying to get her to say something else or nothing and just smile, but she likes to say cheese and so all her pictures look like this.