Cookies and kiddos

I thought it would be a great idea to invite some friends and their little ones over for a cookie baking playdate. After all, who doesn't love baking cookies?

I put a lot of thought into what to make. I wanted something fun and easy and decided on gingerbread and chocolate chip. I mixed up the gingerbread in advance, since it has to chill overnight. I figured I would roll it out when our friends arrived, so the kids could cut out shapes and decorate thier cookies.

And then I set out all the ingredients for chocolate chips, thinking everyone could take turns dumping ingredients into the mixer and spooning the dough on to the baking sheets.



It was a good plan.

At 1:25, five minutes before the appointed time, my darling son, the light of my life, tugged on my hand. He had his stuffed monkey by the neck. "Nap!" he said, popping his thumb into his mouth.

Um.

Ok.

I did some Mommy-Analysis. I calculated that he as just bored of waiting and would perk right up once his friends arrived. I assumed it would be ok.

And he did. Briefly.

We had a total of five little boys. Turtle, C, J, K and N. And their lovely mommies. :) I got the dough rolled out for round one of cookies. All the little ones flocked to the table, ready to decorate.

I found A stealing bits of dough from the edges of the rollout, and then moved on to taking the whole bag of holiday M&Ms for consumption purposes. When I took the bag away, he resorted to stealing the M&Ms from the cookies that J was making.

Look at him. He's shameless.



J loved cutting out the shapes.



K and his mommy did some beautiful work together.



Turtle and J's attempts at gingerbread.



Not long after this cookie sheet hit the oven, Turtle got overwhelmed. He burst into the most awful tears, and wailed "TOOOOOOTH!!!! SLEEEEEEP!!!!" at the top of his little lungs. Poor kid. He's been cutting his eye teeth, which has been awful. What could I do? I put him to bed.

That didn't stop his pals from having fun, though :)

N and J check out Lightning McQueen.



C takes a ride on the zebra.



K shows off his new hat.



N shows his mommy what colors to use.



C takes his cookie-making very. very. seriously.



This is the prettiest batch of chocolate chips EVER.



J is proud of his handiwork.



Thanks for coming over to all! We had a blast!