cheater, cheater cookie eater

whew! it was quite a fabulous weekend. i have much to report, but i figured i'd finally revisit the fun cookie post i had planned last week sometime.

the ol' cookie jar had been empty for quite some time, and while on my grocery run i picked this up - and yes, it's totally cheating, but i was feeling kind of lazy.

besides, for cookies like these, the fun is in the decorating. and with the bean at a great age to "help," i scooped out half the dough in the tub and sprinkled a little flour on my silpat to roll it out.

i used the festive cutters that we'd found at target's $1 bins - the very best place to pick up merry little novelties and other cute stuff.

every time i do cutout cookies, they puff up like mad and pretty much lose their shape. the streak didn't end here, either. oh, well.

i mixed up a batch of royal icing and added some food coloring - although it never really got quite as red as we wanted it. we ended up with some freaky shade of pink, but we didn't care.

i slathered the tops with the pink frosting, put some that i'd set aside for the teen to use in a ziploc bag, and watched them go to town with the sprinkles. the bean was a little gun-shy at first, but she got into it in no time.

but the novelty of shaking the sprinkles out wore off pretty fast, and then she decided to inspect the container more closely - with her eyes AND her mouth. heh.

she started dabbing at the sprinkles that had fallen onto the table and licking them off of her fingers.

when she'd cleaned off the table, she moved to the cookies. "mmm, sprink-ohs!" she said.

while we went off to wash her hands, the teen got to work and did a little decorating with the white frosting bag.

of course, as soon as we returned to the table, the bean got her paws on the spatula to sample the frosting.

the teen's handiwork:

and the bean's:

my two favorite pastry chefs:

it was a fun evening. i think we may have to repeat that soon - the cookies were tasty (as they were pillsbury cheater cookie dough, that was no surprise) and totally amusing to watch the girls at work. next time, maybe we'll just clear off the table and have lots of different colors of frosting and sprinkles and stuff available.

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas!