Tuesday Tips

The Crayon Wrangler has come up with a great idea for a blog hop carnival that starts today. It's called Tuesday Tips. All you have to do is share what you have learned about the topic of the week and link up. Pretty simple and fun. Can't wait to read everyone's tips this week!

This week's topic: Cooking with Small Children:

My favorite thing to cook with my children is sugar cookies. After much trial and error, here is the way it works best for us.

*Step one: call children into the kitchen and tell them that you are going to bake cookies today. Gather supplies needed to make cookies-pans, cookie cutters, sugar, eggs, flour, etc. Trip over two different children while doing this because they are standing within 3 centimeters of you the entire time.
*Step two: clean up the half bag of flour and egg that you dropped when you tripped over said children. Start to wonder if this was such a good idea.
*Step three: send children to wash their hands. While they are gone, quickly get as many of the ingredients into the bowl as possible.
*Step four: allow each child to put one of the remaining ingredients in each. Give each child a turn to mix the dough. Retrieve a new spoon because a child put the one they were using in their mouth at the end of their turn. Finish mixing the dough yourself. Think to yourself that maybe next time you should get the dough ready before calling the kids to help.
*Step five: Prepare the surface for rolling out the dough by covering with flour while unsuccessfully attempting to keep children from also covering themselves and your floor.
*Step six: roll out the dough. Tell the kids to grab a cookie cutter. Children begin arguing over who gets to use the star. Take the star away from both and tell them to choose another. Children now argue over the heart. Take all the cookie cutters away. Put them behind your back and pass them out randomly to the children while using the quote "you get what you get and you don't throw a fit." At least one child misses the part about not throwing a fit. Decide that when you do this again, you will just make dropped cookies.
*Step seven: Let the children cut out one cookie each. Switch cutters in a clockwise direction. Repeat until every child has used every cutter. Send children to wash their hands while you finish cutting the cookies because "mommy's going to do it really quick so we can hurry up and have a cookie." Tell the children to go change their clothes because of the flour. Cringe at the thought of ANOTHER load of laundry to do today.
*Step eight: Put cookies in the oven. Take two tylenol. Sweep flour off kitchen floor. Wash flour off table. Make mental note to make cookies while the children are in bed from now on.
*Step nine: Remove cookies from oven. Pour cups of milk for you and the children. Call the children to come and have some cookies while they are warm. Watch their eyes light up as they eat the cookies. Get several cookie crumb hugs and kisses as they finish as you are proclaimed "the best mom ever!"
*Step ten: Think to yourself, "We really should do this more often."