Cookies

I had this brilliant idea to make some cookies with the boys the other day. I figured they had reached an age where they could actually have fun and help, as long as I didn't mind what the cookies looked like. I found an easy recipe for candy cane cookies, which are simply sugar cookies that you divide in half, color one batch red, and twist the two colors together to create candy canes. Simple enough, right? The boys LOVE playing with play dough and they tend to always make snakes with the play dough, so I figured this would be PERFECT for them:-) Let me interject some advice now learned: play dough is EXTREMELY different than cookie dough.

So the boys started rolling their *cookie* dough into snakes, and the fun event quickly turned frustrating for them. Then the frustration turned into anger, and then we went from anger to tears. My joyous night of cookie making was not going as planned (does it ever with kids?!?). Then the boys came up with the idea that they wanted to make snowmen with their *cookie* dough. I knew that snowmen would never survive cooking in the oven, but why not make the most of the situation I thought. So, instead of having a nice plate of cookies looking like this:

We had this:

One by one we watched the snowmen "melt" like Frosty the snowman. Ryan and I had a little contest going on which one would survive, and I am proud to say mine was the winner...all the way in the back right (yes I gave up and made snowmen as well!):

Oh, and if you have ever made these candy cane cookies, please PLEASE tell me the secret. Because while I managed to put together one sheet of them, they turned out like this:

Not too appetizing, but they taste really good!