Yesterday, the car wouldn’t start.
When it finally did, Husband got two or three blocks away before it died again…and wouldn’t come back alive. So we had a choice between sending him to work or Red to preschool, and guess who won.
Sigh.
I’m not complaining though! We actually had a fantastic day.
I knew they were supposed to have a Gingerbread Man Day at preschool today…they were going to decorate gingerbread men and eat them and all that jazz. And did I have molasses? Or cloves? Or more than a teaspoon of ginger?
Don’t be silly.
So I was scrambling around at 6 in the morning (I know, I know, I’m a wuss that 6 is early for me…I haaaate getting up early) printing out worksheets and planning a Gingerbread Man Day. Without any actual gingerbread men.
I couldn’t let him miss preschool!
I couldn’t let him miss his gingerbread man day!
I could just imagine his sad little baby face if I had to say we weren’t doing preschool and how disappointed he’d be that he missed decorating gingerbread men!!
I had to do something.
So here’s what happened (after breakfast and morning chart and a few odds-and-ends chores):
9:30 a.m.
First things first, and entirely unrelated…
We went for a walk.
In 25 degree weather.
Because I hate myself.
Nah, the boys like being outside, it was sunny, we had to put a note on our truck (parked in the shoulder on the street a few blocks over) saying “hey, please don’t tow us, call us if you need anything” (no one called, phew, and no one towed us, double phew). But ohmygosh, it was awfully cold.
It was a good walk. We had a cute bundled up Fish, lots of running, found an old glove (“ew, please put that down, no we can’t take it with us!”), and there was a cute little rundown bridge that led back to our neighborhood. Great little adventure for the morning.
I always advise an adventure if the weather permits and you have time. All is forgiven if you can go on an adventure, and adventures are just plain ol’ fun to have.
Because ADVENTURE.
10:30 a.m.
Once we got home and defrosted a little and put Fish down for a nap, the real Gingerbread fun began.
First of all, thank goodness for Pinterest. I knew Red was on the letter W in school and, obviously, was having a gingerbread party, so here are the links to worksheets I printed out:
Easy Peasy Learners
Used these with Red (4) and the Professor (not quite 3) and they were PERFECT. I printed all of them and split them between the two boys to whoever seemed more suited (age wise) to the task. More circling for Professor, more writing and following a path to Red, etc.
Would definitely use this site again. UH-mazing.
Mrs. Thompson’s Treasures
Love love love! I had Professor coloring still while Red did the gingerbread graphing worksheet. It really made him think but he got the hang of it! Hurray for learning!
MPM Ideas
Ahhh the pièce de résistance!
I used the plainest gingerbread man and printed him on cardstock so we could paint him. We used googly eyes on him later: they turned out so cute!!
The boys LOVE to paint, so I had to convince them to let them dry so we could glue on googly eyes and buttons later.
12 p.m.
Time for “real” “gingerbread men”. I threw on 5 Minute Fairy Tales for a while (starting with the gingerbread man one, of course) which is a show on Amazon Prime. They were okay, but I’m a true-ist when it comes to fairy tales, and these didn’t really cut it for me. But they were distracting for the boys. At some point I couldn’t handle any more shortened versions and went with this version, also on Amazon Prime….much better. Although, dude, snarky voices much?
Anyway. With the boys distracted, I used some chocolate chip cookie dough I had in the fridge (true to my blog name, I suppose, hah!) and squished the dough into gingerbread man cookie cutters, making sure I moved some chocolate chips over to the head to be eyes.
THEY CAME OUT SO FAT AND UGLY.
I laughed so hard.
(I had to make sure the picture stayed big enough you could see them in their full glory, they’re just–such a–a hoot!!)
But you know what?
The boys LOVED them. I don’t really like gingerbread cookies anyway, so maybe I’ll just have to do this every year! Fat and ugly though they may be!
1 p.m.
Cookies and lunch later (yes, lunch came AFTER cookies, because obviously, we had fat cookie men to eat) we got back to our gingerbread men paintings, added some clothes and eyes and a little smile, and voila! Look at these beauties:
How do you not love them???
Happy sigh.
SO BASICALLY.
Stupid rough morning turned into beautiful day of painting and cookie-eating. I wish all days were this good.
Tomorrow we won’t be missing preschool, but don’t worry…I have an ART DAY all planned out anyway on my beautiful greenboard of happiness. An art day that, of course, include a walk, because ADVENTURE.
It’s going to be phenomenal.
Honestly, every day you wake up thinking it will be a great day, and you decide it’s going to be, and you freaking say, nuh-uh, no bad day for me–
–you have a PHENOMENAL day.
Keep thinking positive guys.
We’ve totally got this.
And have a gingerbread day with fat chocolate chip cookie men and painting. Everyone could use one of these.
Cookies & Racecars 
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