Easter Cookie Play Day 2016

Once upon a time, there was this gigantic bowl of royal icing… And now there isn’t! Just acres of beautiful Easter cookies. 

Sam and I had some fun at my house decorating cookies one afternoon last week. She baked, I made and tinted the icing. What a great partnership that turned out to be. Except for the part of the partnership where the icing making partner didn’t really get her job done ahead of time. (But then Sam got to advise on color mixing and that was extra fun!)

The cloud-filtered light was streaming into my dining room between random downpours of rain. For a while, Octonauts was our background track.

 

Featuring Sam’s cookies: 

Don’t be alarmed by that middle bunny. She’s perfectly nice, just is cosmetically challenged. We all know someone like her. 

Oh, and then there was the part where we spent all afternoon also wondering if little Ella was getting chicken pox and what that might mean for the extended family Easter celebration. 

And now featuring Gail’s cookies: 

And then, of course… 

Abbi wanted to decorate cookies, so eventually I sat her beside me and we got busy. This is the one I love best!

I am not that fond of these eye-decorations, though. They just have too much … dimension ;) But she liked this cookie guy we put together.

Abbi story: Then there was the smother-the-hilarity moment when Abbi decided the icing drizzling out of the bag onto her cookie from 6″ in the air could just as well be caught in her mouth as on the cookie … over and over: drizzle for the cookie, raise up the icing bag and catch a drizzle for her mouth. I casually took the bag away. Eventually ;) Frosting tip washed, fresh icing squeezed out, bag replaced in its drinking glass. Another color of icing bag for her, same deal. A third bag, one with a very, very small tip that icing could not drizzle out of … but she made it work anyway! The girl likes her royal icing, I guess. It seems frosting bag is just like one of those baby food pouches. By this time, I thought Sam might snort her suppressed laughter and maybe some unwanted substances onto her cookies, but that mama has control! 

While my hubby made dinner (with Abbi’s help — at 2, it’s just a fancy way of babysitting) Sam and I continued on into the evening getting more skillful and creative with the wondrous icing and decorating bits.  And then a little burned out. So many cookies. So many tired kiddos. We ate, they left, and I left the cookies for 36 hours to dry (was just a tiny bit humid early last week!) 

Aren’t there always a few “Hmm, that didn’t exactly turn out like I envisioned it” cookies? The one in the middle? The orange flower in the pink rectangle? In real life, you can barely distinguish between the pink and the orange, and even the purple blends in. I was shocked to see the photo and find out what it really looked like! Good job after all, Sam! LOL

Eat your mistakes. Especially when you can just make another one. So I did. Abbi’s butterfly doesn’t really deserve to be in the Hmm section — my apologies to the 2-year-old cookie artist! 

This Cookie Play Day was originally going to be a Cookie Challenge. But then when we continue to realize what challenges we face in our daily lives these days, it became so much more sensible, and convenient, and FUN to spend time together and just play :) 

This is my very, very favorite, and Sam’s, too. Just SO stinkin’ cute — 

Good job, Sam! 

(Photos on the day: Sam. Staged photos: Gail. Processing: Gail (the one that’s not the professional photographer ;) )

Have a Happy and Blessed Easter! 

With love from, 

Gail and Sam, mother and daughter, blog partners and friends! 

PS It isn’t chicken pox, it is Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease and they have to stay home *sadness*