Raining Cookies

When it rains, it pours. Sometimes, all day long.

Today at our house, rain poured outside while cookies reigned indoors – from breakfast through supper and beyond...

We started with a package of sugar cookie mix, butter, an egg, baking utensils, a can of frosting, a box of food coloring and a large dose of patience for this tedious (twice-a-year) project.

As I rolled the dough into thin sheets, Noah observed, "It rolls out like play dough... only it makes real LIVE cookies."

What makes cookies "LIVE" in the eyes of a first grader might have to do with the cookie-cutter shapes. In Noah's time, we've always used Swedish ones shaped as an old-fashioned man, woman, moose and evergreen tree. And for good measure, we throw in a mini-heart.

Today, Noah began rummaging through the drawer and said, "I wanna see if there's a frog one."

(Yesterday's wood frog experience was still fresh on his mind.)

I replied, "We've never had a frog cookie cutter."

"Oh..." he shrugged. "I really wanted a frog today."

"Well," I said. "We can set the frog timer to tell us when the cookies come out of the oven."

Noah nodded, "Yeah!"

I placed the cutters on the dough. He pressed them down, took away the scraps and formed the new balls for me to roll out. As the cookies came out of the oven, Noah counted and recorded the number on a notebook sheet. After filling five pans with 59 cookies, we had a tiny dough scrap leftover.

"I've got an idea," I said. Noah asked, "What?"

"It'll be a surprise – just for YOU!" I replied forming a wide, oval shape with two lumps at the top.

After lunch, Aaron joined our group to decorate five dozen cookies. I plopped a couple heaping tablepoons of frosting in the glass bowls that we use for dyeing Easter eggs and added a few drops of various food colorings to make a rainbow of frosting choices.

The boys began frosting base colors as I filled snack bags with colored frosting and poked a toothpick-size hole in one corner for squeezing out lines of color. Aaron said, "I love decorating cookies. This is better than dyeing Easter eggs. Cookies taste WAY better."

One cookie at a time, we each decorated a tray of four sets of men and women, a few hearts and a few trees – like the one.

Aaron still had two trees to decorate when his tune changed, "When did we start? Three hours ago? I'm done... I can't take this anymore."

"Take a break," I said. "I'll finish your trees and call you for the moose."

By the time I finished

and combined all the leftover frosting

to make a brownish color for the Moose,

Aaron and Noah were ready for the last leg.

Viola!

They finished and posed with their work.




Noah showed off his surprise – with the result from Mom's handiwork on that tiny dough scrap –

a frog cookie to match

yesterday's hibernating ones

outside... where tonight

it's still raining.