On Wednesday I had all the older girls from Helping Hands come over to help make Christmas cookies (plus our two wonderful cooks at HHCH). We all had a lot of fun and just about managed to fit in my kitchen. 

They next day the older boys came too to help decorate them. So I wasn't sure if I would do just simple frosting or go for royal icing. I decided with the latter and it worked out great! I have never worked with royal icing before but got the recipe from a friend (thank you Harmony!) and it turned out amazing. The kids got VERY creative!

 168 decorated cookies! They all did an awesome job and I think this will become an annual advent. We'll take our cookies with us when we head to another orphanage on Monday to do an outreach. The children will play with the other kids, sing songs, do a drama, and speak to them about the true meaning of Christmas.