Cookies!

Robin and I made Valentine's Day cookies this week!  They're heart-shaped cutouts.  I hadn't been sure how he would do with this--or rather, how much patience he would have.  He only made it through one tray when we made cookies at Christmas, but he made it through almost the entire process this time! 

 

We spread this over three days.  On day 1, we made the dough.  He was very proud to wear his daddy's apron.

 

He liked helping to measure ingredients

and using the mixer.

His patience lasted all the way until I had to start mixing the flour by hand, by which time he really wanted to lick a beater so I let him. 

On day 2, he saw me pulling my hair back before starting and wanted a ponytail of his own, so he got one.  He looks like Pebbles.  On that day we rolled out the dough,

cut the shapes, and baked them. 

He really liked the cookie cutters, though we butted heads a little as I tried to prevent him from making his cutouts overlap.  When we got to the end of the dough, instead of mushing it back together multiple times to get a few more cookies out of the scraps, I just let him overlap as much as he wanted and baked the strangely-shaped pieces.  It was much faster, fun, and easier on both of us, that way.

He also liked playing with the flour.

On day 3, we decorated.  I made white, red, pink, and purple frosting.  The white I left in a bowl and I spread it over the faces of the cookies.  I put the colored frostings in sandwich bags, sealed them, mushed it all to the bottom, and then

used a twist tie to hold it down.  Then I snipped off the corner to make my own, kid-friendly frosting bags (this way nothing could come out the back while he's squeezing.)  It worked really well.  The white guaranteed that all cookies have a uniform amount of frosting, and Robin got to make them pretty.  We only had to stop and wash Robin's hands one time after he put his fingers in his mouth, (though he also claimed three cookies as his own as we went, by taking bites out of them.)

He lasted until I was running out of white, at which point there were only about a half-dozen cookies left.  I took the bags away from him and told him it was okay to lick his fingers.  (Yum!  I've been waiting for this for a long time, Mama!)

Of course, it made a huge mess, but it was worth it.