Cookie Time

So there we were, only three days away from Christmas and gah! I realized we hadn't made any cookies for Santa! The girls were more than happy to help, so yesterday I set up their play table in the kitchen and let them have at it. First up were my favorite cocoa fudge cookies.









Emily did a great job rolling the cookies into balls, while Kate mostly just enjoyed getting her hands messy. (I promise I washed their hands before we started!) While the cocoa fudge cookies baked, we moved onto chocolate chip cookies. Emmy suggested making them with M&Ms, so we did half chocolate chip and half M&Ms.






I think it's safe to say that mixing in the chocolate chips and M&Ms was their favorite part of cookie day yesterday, not least of all because they got to "sneak" some chocolate while I wasn't looking. But you know they knew I knew, and that's all part of the fun, isn't it?










With the cocoa fudge and chocolate chip cookies finished yesterday, today was all set to be sugar cookie day. This morning, Emily had a playdate at Caitie's house AND ACTUALLY LET ME LEAVE HER THERE ALONE (sorry, did I just yell that?) where they were going to decorate the first cookies of the day. I planned to use that time to get my own sugar cookies started at home, which turned into Kate "helping" me break an egg into the beating mixer which then led to me having to make an emergency run to the grocery store for more butter since my last two sticks of butter were wasted in an eggshell mess. By the time I finished at the grocery store (which was packed, mind you, considering it's the day before Christmas Eve), it was time to pick up Emily from her playdate, where it turned out that they were just getting ready to start decorating, so Kate and I stuck around to help for a bit. By the time we got back home, it was naptime for Kate, so I was able to get the sugar cookie dough made without my littlest helper so that by the time she woke up, the dough was nice and chilled and ready to decorate and bake.




Thankfully, I had the foresight to let them decorate most of the cookies with sprinkles before baking and left only a few undecorated for them to ice afterwards, because while Emily managed to ice a whopping two cookies, Kate only did one -- and promptly ate it. That meant icing the remainder of the plain cookies was up to me.





I think it's pretty clear who decorated which cookies, don't you? (Hint: note the half-iced gingerbread man on the left, and the mix-and-match sprinkles star on the right.) We all know what matters is how they taste, and I can assure you they taste delicious. I think Santa will be pleased.