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Summer is full swing and my kids are already bored. My oldest is officially done with preschool and will be starting kindergarten in fall (I get teary thinking about it-where did the time go?). Every day, he always asks, “Mom, what are we doing tomorrow?” He always wants to hear something fun and actually gets upset if I’m honest and say “I don’t know yet”. At least my toddler is happy just hanging out and playing with cars!
I’m so excited to be participating in a fun summer survival series for anyone raising boys, hosted by Kara at The Joys of Boys. It includes several weeks of fun ideas on a variety of topics that you can do to beat summer boredom with your kiddos. They have already had a couple of weeks with great ideas, so be sure to check it out. A couple of my favorites are the paracord bracelets and the homemade reusable volcano!
Blogger:
This week’s theme is all about fun recipes that you can make with your boys. My kids’ favorite thing to make with me are cookies. And, since they are still really little, it needed to be something that didn’t involve a lot of heat (and it’s super hot outside so I didn’t want to add more heat to our kitchen!).
A couple of weeks ago, I decided to have a cousins water party and invited all of my nieces and nephews over to play for the day. My kids love their cousins and they always get along very well together. So, I had 11 kids over for 7 hours for fun in the sun and some other extra activities. I knew they wouldn’t stay out all day, so I planned to do something that would entertain them in addition to providing a yummy treat.
So we handpainted sugar cookies! It was something I had always wanted to try with my kids and it ended up being a great boredom buster. It kept the kids entertained for a couple of hours and they were proud to show off, and then eat, their artistic creations. It was really easy and not as messy as I thought! I used some dixie cups for the “paint” (corn syrup and food coloring), and the kids painted with paintbrushes and foam brushes. They had a lot of fun creating and mixing different colors and painting different shapes. I loved seeing the different ways they created and expresses themselves.
And to add some extra fun, I brought out some of my art books and talked about some different forms of art. I focused on Picasso and more modern artists. In this way, they not only had fun but I worked some learning in too.
Handpainted Almond Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 Cups Sugar
- 1 Cup Unsalted Butter
- 3 Eggs
- 1 Cup Milk
- 1 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
- 1 tsp Almond Extract
- 6 1/2 cups Flour
- 1 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- 3 12/ tsp Baking Powder
- 1 Tbsp Karo Syrup
- 1-2 drops food coloring
Instructions
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Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt, soda, and baking powder. In a large mixing bowl, cream sugar, butter, and eggs. Add milk, vanilla, and almond extract, mixing at low speed. Add to sugar mixture until well combined. Refrigerate dough for 30 minutes. When ready, roll out dough to 1/8 inch thick and cut out into desired shapes.
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Handpaint cookies using a mixture of Karo syrup and food coloring. Have your kids use paint brushes and let their creativity fly!
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Set cookies on parchment paper lined cookie sheets and bake for 6 minutes until light golden brown around the edges. Do not overbake. May need slightly more time, depending on how much "painting" was done. When out of the oven, sprinkle with extra sugar.
