baby, it's cold outside

so winter is apparently here. for real this time. everyone told us it was winter after the first rain in september. we put away all the shorts and t-shirts and got out the winter clothes and made the kids wear huge coats everywhere. but it was really like 65* every day. but now, in the middle of december, it has finally gotten cold. and windy. but not rainy. i am glad it's not rainy, but apparently we really need the rain, so i guess it would be ok with me if it started raining too.

since it is cold, it is not so pleasant to go outside in the afternoons. the sun sets by 5:15, so about 4:00 when it starts to go down, the temperature drops significantly. we usually aren't ready to go out with the kids until 3:45, so it doesn't leave much time. plus everyone is sick, including me, so i sure don't want to go out. but there's not much to do inside. legos and playdough can only entertain them for so long. so yesterday i had the great idea to make christmas cookies.

people don't make christmas cookies here. when we tried to explain to the palestinian workers what we were doing, like cutting them out with cookie cutters, icing them, decorating with sprinkles, they didn't really get why. it's sad to me that an entire culture has missed out on the excellent tradition of christmas cookies and hot coco. then again, the majority of the culture is muslim, so they miss out on everything that has to do with christmas....anyway, so my idea was that during nap time, from 1-3, i would make the dough and chill it so it would be ready at 3:30 when we're done with snacks. no problem, right? i found a quick recipe and then headed off to the store.

this is where it started to get way more complicated than i wanted it to. i went to the biggest grocery store in town. or on my street. it's way smaller than IGA. i needed butter, food coloring, powdered sugar, and vanilla. pretty basic ingredients. yeah...no food coloring and no powdered sugar. so i settled for store-bought icing in jar with hebrew writing that i couldn't read and weird pictures so i had no idea what i was buying. but it turned out ok. so after about 20 min at the store, i got back and started making the dough. it took way longer than i expected because i'm an idiot and can't add and convert cups to milliliters. long story short, i put way too much butter in and ended up having to make a quadruple batch. needless to say, we have a little dough left over in the freezer. finally about 3:01 i finished the dough and stuck it in the fridge.

the cookies turned out to be quite a hit. the kids loved them. they were very curious with every step...rolling out the dough, using the cookie cutters, seeing them come out of the oven, icing them, decorating them. even the boys stayed entertained all afternoon. we only had one christmas tree cookie-cutter that wasn't tiny, so we used that a lot, but then the palestinian workers who didn't get the christmas cookie theme, pulled out all sorts of little cookie-cutters...doves, ducks, stars, hearts, houses. so they weren't exactly christmas cookies, but the kids had a blast doing it. and it successfully took all afternoon, so there was no going outside for us.

on completely different note, jason and i are watching season 2 of 24. we have so far wasted 18 hours of our lives and plan on finishing it tomorrow. jack is my new hero. i want to be him when i grow up.