That's right! That's right! I shake my butt all night!

Taught Jack how to play UNO and he's already beat me - legitimately - 7 games to 4. I am proud of him but also have a deeply competitive streak that I got from my mom (the GOOD mom) so I'm frustrated. Kyle, whom Rob spent 20 minutes getting down for a nap only 10 minutes ago, wakes up from all the commotion - not sure if it was me shouting "un-f*&#king-BELIEVABLE!!!!" or Jack dancing around the room singing "That's right, that's right, I shake my butt all night!". Either way, Kyle is begging to stay up & I know I should not relent - we have a New Year's Eve party to go to & I'm just setting myself up for a miserable night if Kyle doesn't get a nap in - but it's all just so much effort. Rob is in the garage so I figure I'll let him watch one episode of whatever's on and then make an attempt at getting him back down.
In the meantime, I have attempted to counteract my badmommedness with some cookie making. I made some of my Grandma's cream cheese cookies, and made red & green frosting with food dye. I used a bell-shaped cookie cutter for the reindeer shape face. After I spread the frosting, I used mini-pretzels for antlers, cut a mini-marshmallow in half for the whites of the eyes & put mini-chocolate chips in the middle of each for irises. I used a red m&m for the nose and voila, Rudolph cookies.

 

In case you're interested, here's the cookie dough recipe:

 

GRAMMY'S CREAM CHEESE COOKIES

• 1 cup butter
• 3 ounces cream cheese
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 1/2 cups flour

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Cream butter until fluffy, then work in cream cheese & sugar, making sure mixture is smooth & creamy.
3. Beat in egg yolk, vanilla and flour.
4. Chill in refrigerator then roll out and cut with cookie cutters.
5. Bake 15 minutes.

Just in case I lose some of my "bad mom cred" with these cookies, here's a picture of my first attempt at these - before I realized that the reindeer face would look better if I turned the bell upside down & that the eyes without the whites behind them looked lame.

 

Ok, now the older kid is chanting "I'm hungry" over & over and I gotta try to put the little one back down for a nap before my husband comes back in the house. Even a bad mom's work is never done....