83 Days of Summer- Cards and Cookies

 Writing 10 Love Notes

Our 83rd Summer Adventure is preparing of for our 82nd. I wish I could take the credit for thinking this one up, but I can't. When telling my cousin about my adventures this summer and the idea for this blog, she suggested this one and today seemed like the perfect day to do it.  

If you know me, you know how much I enjoy cooking and baking. No seriously, I would love to take some classes to sharpen my skills because I truly do enjoy it. My mom is an excellent baker. Her drop sugar cookies are down right mouthwatering. 

Today the kids asked if we could make cookies. I am really trying to cut sweets out of picture this month (a whole other topic) so I really didn't want to make my favorites. Isaac asked specifically for my cut-out cookies.  They enjoy making them, just as much as eating them.  

I've included in the post my recipe.  I got it off the internet years ago, and every where I take them people rave and ask for the recipe...here it is. No big secret.  Oh, and I use store bought cream cheese icing from Betty Crocker and dye it the color I need. Again, hold my cape. I don't have the time, nor the energy to make homemade. But the thing with this recipe is it either goes perfectly well or a complete and utter disaster.  I always am holding my breath to see how the dough comes out after chilling overnight.  Yes you have to do some pre-planning with this one because I've found overnight ALWAY works better than 4 hours. Sometimes it's perfect. Sometimes it's way to sticking and an absolutely pain to work with throughout the process. 

Luckily for me, the dough was perfect today. I put a little flour out on the rolling mat and rolled it out. Kids both chose two cutters. Isaac chose a train and a star. Olivia picked a crown and a heart. I had cut the recipe in half and we got 38 cookies. I think it all depends on how big your cutter is that you are using to determine how many cut-outs you yield. So if you plan on not cutting out forever, may want to cut this recipe in half. We will icing and decorate tomorrow before we head out to deliver our goods, so hang tight to see the end product! But chef hats and all, we had a "sweet" time baking together. 

The second part of our adventure today was making homemade cards. My kids LOVE art time. With a little construction paper and stickers, markers, glue, scissors and my endless scrapbook and stamping supplies, I can entertain these two for hours. 

The beauty of children making cards is that they don't need to be perfect. When I make homemade cards, I'm measuring and aligning and looking online to see what colors coordinate perfectly. These two just put what makes sense or is neat to them.  So if you see a gemstone next to a zebra sticker, that makes sense. I don't restrict them, although I did tell Isaac to start asking me how to spell things. (He just came from a Kindergartner classroom that encouraged to spell how it sounds.  Makes sense to me, but most likely will just look like a bunch of random letters to others!). 

Each kiddo made five cards. What do you think?  I opened them up and took a picture too, so you could see how much work they put into them.  I bet they worked on these cards for over an hour! Olivia did say as she finished up, "I hope people like our cards and don't just throw them away!" Awe, baby girl, I hope they love them too!