Holiday baking: homemade pretzels, gingerbread house and salt dough ornaments

One of our favorite things to do when we have time is bake--and I L O V E to try new recipes--now, with Beanie :) 

I spotted one for soft pretzels and as we all love them, decided to try it--the best was that it had many steps she could do, while being a pretty quick recipe.  She got to brush the butter on,

and then sprinkle salt.  We tried cheese, and cinnamon and sugar also, but salt was the hands-down favorite.

We did our favorite seasonal treat also, our gingerbread house--always a good time (for five minutes)...

and i'm not sure now whose attention span is shorter--beanie or daddy :)

But my favorite new holiday recipe had to be our salt dough ornaments!  We couldn't decide on a family ornament this year, so we just made our own!  It was so much fun personalizing them for our friends, using stamps we already had, and it was no cleanup, no mess at all really!

Our finished products were super cute--I hope to paint the girls handprints (sometime before we put ornaments away) and we also used glitter and mod podge for a little sparkle on some.  All we did was mix 4 cups flour, 1 cup salt, and 1 1/2 cups water. The dough wasn't sticky at all and the ornaments kept their shapes.  Bake 225 degrees for 3-4 hours.  SO EASY!