Baking Cookies.

Sunday afternoon, the kids and I baked some cookies to take to the teachers at Kidz First.  It all started out with making some M&Ms cookies - which the kids helped me whip up.  They took turns dumping ingredients in the bowl and even using the hand mixer.  Lily only flung flour all over us once.  Not bad, actually, in terms of mess making. 

But the best part was the kids sampling the cookie dough.  That was definitely my favorite part of baking cookies when I was a kid (who am I kidding - even now that's my favorite part) and clearly they are the same way.  

Even Jason came around to check out the cookie dough action.

I ended up in the kitchen for like 6-7 hours.  I don't know what I thinking.  Actually, I do.  It was a mess of a train wreck of thoughts.  It went something like this:

• I need some ideas for the Advent Calendar.  Ooh baking cookies with the kids is a good one.  I'll wrap up some baking M&Ms and plan that activity for a Sunday.
• Ohh, we could bake the cookies for their teachers at school.  That way, I won't have all these cookies in my house and be tempted to eat them all.
• (at grocery store on Saturday morning):  Ohh, here's some refrigerated sugar cookie dough.  We can bake those too, for the teachers.
• Hmm, two different kinds of cookies, that doesn't really seem very exciting to give to the teachers.  How about peanut butter cookies too - those are Joel's favorite so I'm sure he'd appreciate that.
• Oh, if I'm going to make peanut butter cookies, I need Hershey's kisses on top - back to the store for that Saturday afternoon.
• Hmm, well, the kids will like the M&M and sugar cookies and the peanut butter is to satisfy Joel, but chocolate chip is my favorite and I have those ingredients so I'll just whip up a batch of those too.
• Joel:  "I don't like Hershey's kisses on top of my peanut butter cookies."  Doh, now I have a whole bag of Hershey's kisses I really don't need in the house - we still have a mountain of Halloween candy to eat.
• Ohhh, that toffee that Phyllis made was so good and she said it was just butter and sugar and I have that stuff so maybe I can whip up a batch of that too.  That won't take very long.
• Wow, now my Christmas cookie present to the teachers is really coming together.  This will be so nice.  
• Oh, I can throw those Hershey's kisses in the cookie tin too!  That will look great!
• Ok, let's see, where are we now:
• Peanut butter cookies are baked (phone call number one to Phyllis for recipe).  Snuck Hershey's kisses on top of one cookie sheet full.
• Toffee is made and setting up on the counter (phone call #2 to Phyllis to confirm instructions for melting the chocolate on top of the toffee).  
• Dough is made for the M&Ms and the chocolate chip.  
• Kids are waking up from nap, they can help me bake the M&M cookies now (that was a dumb idea - help me? - they don't understand how to make tablespoon size balls on the cookies sheet - they just understand how to make a mess and lick the spoon).
• Oh, crud, I still haven't done anything with that sugar cookie dough.  I'll get to that in a minute.  Do I have sprinkles or anything for those?  Let me check.
• Ok finished up baking the M&M and Chocolate chip cookies - oh wow this is a lot of cookies.
• Oh man, my back, knees and feet are killing me.  Why did I bake all afternoon barefoot?  I should have put my tennis shoes on. 
• I still haven't done that sugar cookie dough.  What time is it?  Oh it's 5:00.  Dang it.  I wanted to work on knitting those legwarmers for Lily.
• Joel:  "We should get dinner ready soon, right? Are we eating leftovers?"  Me:  "I'm eating lettuce.  I've been licking the spoon all afternoon and sampling fresh cookies to make sure they are good enough to give away to other people."
• Crap.  Speaking of dinner... I didn't get this week's meat prepped.  I was going to clean and trim the chicken breast and brown up that turkey italian sausage.  Oh and there's 3 pounds of grapes in there I was going to wash and put in snack baggies.  
• My back is killing me.
• I still didn't do that sugar cookie dough.  And I need to whip up the icing to put on top. 
• It's bath night.  Crap.  I'm too tired. 
• Oh the toffee is ready to break apart.  Let me just taste a little bite of this.  Crap, this isn't even half as good as Phyllis's.  
• "Joel, taste this.  What do you think?"  
• "Uh, it's fine honey."  
• "But it's not as good as your mom's right?" 
• "Uh, no, I mean, it tastes the same as hers but it's not as crunchy or something.  The flavor is fine, just a different texture.  Really, babe, it's good."  
• Liar.  
• "It was your first time making it.  Now you know you how it goes and maybe next time you can cook it longer." 
• This is a lot of cookies - I think I'm skipping the sugar cookies.  I can't stand here any longer and I still have to assemble the actual cookie tins.  This is going to have to be good enough.
• Oh, wow, I can't fit all these cookies in these tins.  So much for not having a lot of leftover cookies.
• Where is my heating pad?