After Christmas I got an email that we could try out the Baby Boy Bakery We Cook Kit and just pay the shipping so we decided to do it. The We Cook Kit is a monthly subscription box with an original recipe and coordinating exclusive tools designed around creating memories in the kitchen with your child. Everly actually got some baking supplies for Christmas from her aunt and really loves helping out in the kitchen. She loved opening the box and going through all of the supplies and wanted to We headed out to Sprouts and picked up some of the ingredients that we didn't have, but we actually had most of them. We stopped by the park on our way home just to get some wiggles out before baking. Aspen is obsessed with swinging and Everly is killing it on the monkey bars. I got all of the ingredients ready for Everly and she helped grease the pan and mix up all of the ingredients. She of course had to sneak a couple of almonds and chocolate chips before adding them in. After they baked and cooled she loved using the cookie cutters to cut them into small shapes. She also loved using the dipper tool to drizzle on the icing. She bagged some up to share with her cousins and sealed them with the cute stickers. It was a really fun activity and I think they taste great too. If you were thinking about trying it out, we really enjoyed it but you do have to buy the ingredients so keep that in mind.
These girls love getting in a little playground time.
Everything in the kit
All of the ingredients
Greasing the pan and toasting the oats and almonds.
Stirring up the honey/sugar and mixing it all together to bake.
This past weekend we had our annual cookie baking day. It showed up in my timehop yesterday that I posted about the cookie extravaganza 7 years ago, so we have been doing this awhile! My post from last year is HERE and the year before is HERE. I actually went over to my sister's house on Friday night and made some dough for the peanut butter kisses so that we would be able to start right away Saturday morning. I literally spent 12 hours straight at my sister's baking and decorating cookies. We tried a new recipe this year for Funfetti Shortbread Bites and they turned out really good. Like dangerously addicting good. We made sooooo many cookies and I still need to make snickerdoodle and my sister needs to make chocolate chip. My sister has a deep freezer full of frozen cookies at her house! I know it seems ridiculous, but we all use these cookies for holiday parties and for gatherings throughout the month. They freeze really well, too. I actually only ate maybe 3 cookies all day long which is kind of nuts, but don't worry there are plenty more for me to eat!
Aspen looooooves cookies.
Shortbread bites and peanut butter kisses
Gingerbread and sugar cutouts
If you take a phone break, Everly will use Hershey kisses to decorate her cookie
Such a mess!
We even got Alex and Kory to decorate some. I made the family ornaments!
Last weekend was busy but good. We had the carnival Friday night and then Saturday morning I got up early for a pretty long drive to my first trail run. I am doing a trail series and the first one was Saturday. It was only a 5k but it was a good challenge for me. Lots of rolling hills in and out of riverbeds. It was not a huge event which was nice because it was a bit narrow in the beginning. I wish it had started a little earlier but thankfully it was not hot. I think I did pretty good for my first time. I got second in my age group so I even got a little medal. I will have a 6k in November and a 7k in December so hopefully I keep getting better. Everly had a soccer game on Saturday and did really well. Honestly, it can be frustrating watching her games sometimes but she scored 5 goals that day! I was so proud. On Sunday night we did some Halloween cookie decorating at my sister's. Basically, the kids decorated one or two cookies and then ate them while I was stuck decorating the rest! Just like Christmas!
We had our annual cookie baking day this past weekend. First I had a 12 mile training run because if you are going to eat cookies all day, you better run first, haha. We have been doing this for a few years now and you can see my post about them last year here. We make double, triple, and quadruple batches of several different types of cookies. The classics include chocolate chip, gingerbread, snicker doodle, peanut butter kisses, and sugar. We also made chocolate crinkles because those have been popular and we tried out chocolate dipped shortbread this year and I think those turned out really good as well. We freeze the cookies and take them out for parties and what not as it gets closer to Christmas. I will be bringing some to my work party tomorrow! Everly and Teddy helped decorate some sugar cookies this year. Everly loves to pile on the sprinkles. So many cookies. We must have a problem because as we were making them we kept saying, "we might need to make more." We loooooove cookies and we look forward to this day every year! Also, this year there was even a spreadsheet and a cookie binder because we take this job seriously!
12 miles done! Now time for cookies!
We start buying ingredients weeks before to take advantage of all of the baking sales at the grocery store.
Two kitchen aid mixers are a must.
Chocolate crinkles and chocolate dipped shortbreads
unwrapped hershey kisses and sugar cookies waiting for frosting
family wreaths by Krystyn
And custom Santa hats also by Krystyn
yum!
don't worry, they ate those cookies.
snickerdoodle cookies
I am not even a huge gingerbread fan, but you just have to make them. They turned out really good, too.
Here is also a quick little video from our cookie baking!
