Super Easy Painted Christmas Cookies

I love making (and eating) Christmas cookies but with three small kids, this activity usually turns daunting and overwhelming pretty easily.  If I make cookies that involve icing, the kids get to turn into little artists but the icing is hard for them to use and makes a huge mess. If I choose drop cookies or something that doesn't need icing, the kids don't really get to do much. So I turned to google the other day and found a couple recipes for painted cookies.  After tweaking them a bit based on what I had in the pantry, we got to work tonight.  This was such a FUN, EASY, and BEAUTIFUL cookie experience.  There was little to no stress and everyone was happy.  My kitchen even stayed a little cleaner than normal.

So here goes, first you make sugar cookies.  I cheated and used a boxed mix that I found on sale a couple months ago for less than a dollar.  We rolled them all out and cut out all the shapes.

As I filled a cookie sheet with shapes, we put them in the fridge to keep a bit better.  When they were all cut, we got to work on the decorating part.  Here is the best part- it's 2 ingredients!  I took a mini muffin pan (an ice cube tray works well too) and poured evaporated milk in each little spot.  The I added different colors of food coloring to each little area and mixed well with a toothpick.  Since I had both the regular and the gel coloring, we tried both.  They both worked really well.

 Each child got a small clean paintbrush and a plate full of UNBAKED cookies.  They painted all of them and then we threw them in the oven for a few minutes based on the box instructions.  Presto!  Fantastic, totally kid friendly, cookies. 

My Favorite Things- Kids Books

We all know those classic kids books that we loved and now our children love. Goodnight Moon, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and The Velveteen Rabbit, will forever be some of my favorites. There are a few "unknown" books that have come into my family's life that quickly crawled their way into our hearts. Some have been given to us by my sister-in-law who is a teacher and others we have randomly picked up at the library and then checked them out the next 4 times in a row. I thought it would be fun to share some of these find and I hope to post these regularly as great ones come along. Here goes...


At Night by Jonathan Bean was a book we picked up a the library a few years ago. The story is quiet, simple, and perfect. It's about a little girl who lives in the city. At bedtime she tosses and turns until she decides to go up to the roof of her building where she quickly finds a peaceful sleep. Is is a must read for any family living in a city.



The Seven Silly Eaters by Mary Ann Hoberman never gets old no matter how many times I read it (and I have read this book A LOT!). It's about a growing family who has some very picky eaters for children. The book is a long rhyme which makes it so fun to read. The story flows wonderfully and the pictures are some of the best. My kids can stare at the pictures of this book for hours and they find something new every time.


A Visitor for Bear by Bonny Becker warms my heart every time I read it. I love the repetative phrase in it and so do my kids. This book is about a bear who will not open his heart (or his home) to anyone. A persistent mouse soon comes along and does everything to to annoy bear and of they make friends at the end. The illustrations on this one are fantastic too.


Priscilla and the Pink Planet by Nathaniel Hobbie quickly became the favorite of my three girls. Like Seven Silly Eaters, this book is a little longer and rhymes beautifully. This book teaches a great lesson on why it is important to have variety in your life. The illustrations have a Seuss-like quality that I adore.

I hope you have found some new books to try and I am really looking forward to hearing what some of your lesser-known favorites are. Please let me know. I would LOVE to grab them at my library and feature them in future weeks. Thanks!

Bang for a Buck

My first kids craft post is not going to be a novel idea. This is a more of a reminder to pay attention to great kids crafts while you are out and about. Saving them for a rainy day can turn any boring weekday into a creative, happy, peaceful house. In our family, the goal of any craft is to consume time. I am not going to lie to you. I have an ulterior motive for almost everything my kids do. I am not going to get out all the painting supplies and mess up my kids and my house for a craft that the kids are going to tear through in 5 minutes. Call me lazy, but I am the type of Mom who wants to get some good solid peaceful time out of a craft. My kids may be abnormal but if I get paints or crayons out and hand them a piece of paper, I get about 10 minutes of quiet. I also get lots of "I don't know what to make?", "Can you help me draw a... ", and "I need another piece of paper."

Recently I was at the fabric store (I seem to live there) and my kids immediately started begging in the $1 section. I did what I normally do and quickly said "no" until I looked up to see my kids holding these tiny wooden bird houses. I saw the possibilities for quiet craft time and instead allowed each of my girls to choose one. Suddenly, I was a nice Mommy and they proudly held their birdhouses through out the store. They didn't even paint the things yet and I was already getting positive behaviors out of my kiddos. Yippee!

A couple days passed at home and we finally got a snow day. We got out the paints and our birdhouses and got ready to be creative. I thought for sure this activity would last 15 minutes at most, especially for my 2 year old. Boy was I wrong! They set to work and all was quiet- not for 5, 10, or 15 minutes but for 30 minutes! Even the two year old was busy painting away. We had a lesson in the beginning of the project about using manners and asking for items to be passed to you and wouldn't you know it worked! Here they sat, painting away, with an occasional "Would you please pass the...". I was in Mommy heaven.

When they finished their bird houses, I handed them a piece of card-stock and asked them to create something else with the left over paints. I was shocked again when the quiet painting continued. Mission accomplished! For $3 total, I got almost an hour of happy, quiet, polite, creative kids. We also had lots of wonderful art to show Daddy when he got home (brownie points for Mommy!). The best part, the houses are now filled with birdseed outside our kitchen door. The kids love watching to see if they are popular with the local birds while they eat their lunch.

My lesson learned, some simple wooden houses, or any of those cheep wooden things found in the dollar isle at the craft store, can make for some happy kids and one relaxed Mama. So don't forget to pick up a few to have on hand for your next "snow day". You never know when you may need to use them!