Christmas Cookies

Posted on December 21, 2012 by MudpiesandSunshine.com

Christmas baking is always on our christmas agenda and this year both girls have asked to make biscuits to share with us and their grandparents on Christmas Day.

Ebony has already made crunchy chocolate biscuits all by herself. Our elf on the shelf got into the biscuit barrell and took a bite the other night – naughty Bimmy!

Zoe wanted to make the biscuit recipe she found in a Christmas activity book that a close family friend (thanks Ann!) bought her. It’s called “The Night before Christmas Sticker and Activity Book” published by Hinkler Books.

Here is the recipe:

CHRISTMAS COOKIES

Ingredients

1 cup icing sugar, sieved
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg yolk
1 cup or 225g/8oz butter, cut into cubes
31/2 cups or 350g/14oz plain flour, sieved

To decorate

250g, 10oz or 2 cups of icing sugar, sieved
Edible gold and silver balls (we had none and used sprinkles)
Food colouring

Method

Line two baking trays with non-stick baking paper
Put the icing sugar, vanilla extract, egg yolk and butter into a mixing bowl and beat together until the mixture is smooth.
Add the flour and mix to a firm dough (we had to add a teeny amount of water)
Shape the dough into two flat discs and wrap in cling film. Put them into the refrigerator for 20 to 30 mins.
Preheat the oven to 375F, 190C or Gas Mark 5.
Roll the dough on a lightly-floured surface, until one finger thick.
Press out your Christmas shapes using your cutters.
Place on baking trays and bake for 10-12 minutes until lightly golden.
Put the cookies onto a wire rack to cool.
Mix the icing sugar with a few drops of cold water and food colouring to make a thick, but still runny icing.
Spread the icing over the cooled biscuits and decorate!

Zoe could not wait to get started. She measured out the butter, chopped it into cubes and then…totally freaked out using the electric beaters, poor thing. The butter was still too hard and it felt like she couldn’t control it. I had to share this photo as it shows just how tough life can be for kids in the first world

This recipe is great for encouraging or helping to establish perserverance in young children. Really, I’m serious! There are so many steps to this recipe, including an agonising 30 minute wait while the dough firms up in the fridge. But with eating and decorating an absolute given it seemed Zoe could have waited a decade. Zoe’s smile returned for the sifting.

These lumps were then wrapped in cling film and placed into the fridge for 30 minutes. After that it was rolling pin action and cookie cutter time!

Here are some out of the oven and the activity book recipe:)

Once all the cookies were cooked and cooled we got on with the business of decorating. I think the pictures tell the story here.

The fun of decorating is not to be understated. Ebony asked if she could join in and Zoe was happy to say ‘yes’. I didn’t say a word about what type/style/method/colours and I didn’t need to. Zoe wanted red and green (we used pink instead of red) icing and then she went on her merry (christmas) way. By the way – you can’t have too many sprinkles!!

Taste test time!

Ready to go on Christmas Day!

Zoe let me have one and they are delicious, almost like shortbread.

Another tradition we have is watching Mr Bean’s Christmas movie every year. The girls love it and it is quite a short movie at under 30 minutes so good for tired nights. Here is the youtube link:- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGh64aODJQ0

Thanks for dropping by. I’m so pleased you could visit

About these ads

Santa’s Sleigh Pretend Play

Posted on December 17, 2012 by MudpiesandSunshine.com

Ever wanted to be Santa for a day?? Have you ever imagined delivering presents to all the girls and boys all over the world – in the sleigh with the reindeer and sackful of presents?

Well strap yourselves in. Santa has the night off and two very lucky girls have been given this monumental and important task – full of magic and complicated logistics. Will they be up to the job? Read on to find out!

Warning:- There are 3 trillion photographs in this post. I couldn’t choose between them so I used them all! The girls were having such a good time – I really wanted that to resonate in this post to encourage more people to give this a go!

While the girls were at school I prepared the whole scene. For the sleigh I upturned our coffee table, used a small round red rug for the floor, had the santa hats ready, used baubles as decorations and/or dashboard instruments, filled a santa sack with wrapped presents, used tinsel as decorations and the reins and of course introduced some of our teddy population to the terrific task of pulling the sleigh.

I also created two ‘homes’ for the girls to deliver presents to. It was bunny’s house on the green sofa (and his santa sack at the end of his bed – not proportional but useful nonetheless!).

Is he awake or asleep? I never can tell

Little kangaroo’s house was set up on the biege sofa. All in bed and waiting for Christmas morning.

Needless to say, the girls had a blast. They fit together in the sleigh beautifully and absolutely loved being in charge of Christmas!

There were a lot of fun times driving the sleigh to all it’s important destinations!

The girls were so happy to be able to step into Santa’s shoes and actually deliver presents.

Finding the food that bunny and kangaroo left out for Santa was an added bonus which no present delivery should be without! Below Zoe is reading from a pretend note that was left for (her) Santa. Something about how much bunny loves Santa and what she would love for Christmas.

After they had eaten there was one more surprise – they could open one of the presents each. Ebony was canny enough to know it must be the ones without labels or tags..

Two more books to add the Christmas book display.

Once the books were opened the sleigh became the place to be to read, to play and to deliver presents all over again. In fact four days on the sleigh is still in the middle of our lounge room and Zoe has asked every night if the sleigh can stay for another day

All reindeer’s need their sleep so it’s nice to be tucked in by someone who loves you! Zoe just loves it. I think it helps her cope with all the waiting!

I wonder how long the sleigh will be taking pride of place in our lounge room? I have a feeling we will only get our coffee table back on Christmas Day.

I hope your Christmas preparations are going well. Thanks so much for dropping by!

Friday Afternoon Fun – Taking Christmas Outside

Posted on December 7, 2012 by MudpiesandSunshine.com

What a lot of fun we have had during this series of Friday Afternoon Fun activities. It is all about banishing the friday afternoon grumpy gremlins and putting the sparkle back in.

We have:

and my favourite – hidden notes. Don’t tell the girls but I might do this again on the last day of school this year.

This time, as the title suggests – we took christmas outside. And we gave it a good talking to Bad jokes aside, what I actually did was meet the girls half way. They have been begging us to put up some Christmas lights outside. It hasn’t happened to date so instead I bought some tinsel and baubles (marked down, yay) and hid these lovelies in a basket until the girls came home from school.

Big reveal time!

The girls just had to play dress-ups with the tinsel before it was going to see the light of day. I forgot how tactile and imaginative children are for a minute

When we did get outside at last – the girls approached the job fairly – ‘this half of the shrub is mine, that’s yours’ – ‘how do you want to split up the baubles?’. Once the agreements had been made, they got on with it and had an absolute ball.

There was clapping involved.

And lots of concentrating with placement and colour.

Happy girls on a Friday Afternoon!

I hope you’ve been enjoying the series and thanks so much for dropping by!

Friday Afternoon Fun – Christmas Tree Decorating

Posted on December 2, 2012 by MudpiesandSunshine.com

December 1st is my favourite day of the year. I love it just a smidge more than birthdays and December 25th. I do. 10 years ago, even 4 or 5 years ago it was just another day. But since we have started making Dec 1st the traditional day of putting up the tree and all the decorations – it has become a big deal around here. I have become quite attached to it so to speak.

The girls absolutely love it too.

I love to prepare everything while the girls are at school. This means they leave the old normal house in the morning and arrive at a sparkly Christmas house in the afternoon. I just love that part.

This time I chose to set up on November 30th because it was a Friday and I do prefer doing it on a school day and Saturday December 1st was a busy one socially for us.

So let’s jump to the day itself – 3pm to be exact —-> This is the FIRST THING the girls said when I picked them up from school on Friday afternoon:

Ebony ‘Is it Christmas tree decorating today still?’

Me ‘Yes!’

Ebony ‘Oh thank goodness’

Zoe ‘When I heard the siren go at the end of the day I said YES!’.

The tree was waiting impatiently for them at home. Tinsel and lights already on. Tinsel is a very touchy subject – so from past experience I put that on first.

Every year the girls choose a decoration at the shops to hang on the tree. They make decorations at home and at school as well but they love the pilgrimage to the shops to buy the decoration for that year. Sounds terribly commercial but we aren’t big shoppers so it is a real treat for them.

I like laying out their decorations in the most control-freak way possible:

Zoe’s pile, Ebony’s pile, a shared pile, their Christmas cards and drawings from past years and then there is the basket of generic baubles:

And then there is the yummy afternoon tea which the girls have first:

Tummies happy – let the decorating BEGIN:

So much to love!

So much to do!

Is there any space left?

Time to go UP.

Ebony’s turn to place the angel on top of the tree. Zoe remembered that she had done it last year!

Happy face

We had Christmas music playing while we were decorating and at one stage we thought we had lost Zoe. After a brief search we found her:

After tea the girls decided that right next to the Christmas tree was the best place for relaxing with their different bits and pieces. I brought out two love-heart shaped toggle rugs just for this event – the girls loved them.

Just before bedtime, all the ceiling lights were switched off so we could experience the magic of the Christmas tree.

So there you have it – the best Friday Afternoon Fun yet. Advent calendars are hung in rooms, Christmas movies and books are in their hiding places ready to come out and anticipation hangs in the air like Santa’s sleigh above your house in lieu of the next 24 days of the year. Is it too early to say ‘Merry Christmas‘?

Do you have a Christmas tradition that you would care to share? I would love to hear about it – in fact I may even steal it

Thanks so much for dropping by!

Friday Afternoon Fun – Surprise Movie

Posted on November 24, 2012 by MudpiesandSunshine.com

Welcome to another post in the Friday Afternoon Fun series.

This series is all about small ways to enjoy the end of the school week. It also serves to help tired, sometimes grumpy girls get a little bit of their shiny spark back.

It has become a tradition at our house and here are links to some of the fun I have posted about:

This week I opted for a surprise movie. Straight after school with unhealthy snacks and everything!

But first up was a little healthy snack preparation…

Is there any more? I’m not sure this huge amount of popcorn will be enough?

Then it was time to get the movie started.

Recently the girls had chosen a smurfs DVD from the DVD hire store and really enjoyed it (beats me) so when I saw the Smurf’s Christmas video for under $10, I thought “why not?”.

The girls were super surprised and very happy with their movie treat. Doesn’t seem like it here though does it?

Or here.

I’m sure it was those squeaky little voices confusing them. Anyhow, they did have a lovely afternoon watching the movie, eating popcorn and then some chips (crisps) afterwards. They do love a plain potato chip. No photos of those though – they disappeared too quickly. So here is another pic of popcorn instead

Zoe wanted to share one of her insights from Friday’s fun times:-

In the next week or so I want to post about Christmas movies the whole family can enjoy. Given my many foibles, there are great Christmas movies out there we don’t know about so it would wonderful to hear any recommendations for movies from you. If you have a good movie title or two to share – please do in the comments below!

Thanks so much for dropping by!

Friday Afternoon Fun – Parachute Cubby

Posted on November 18, 2012 by MudpiesandSunshine.com

It has been a really busy week for us so I felt a little behind the eight-ball when Friday quickly presented itself. The weekend was going to be busy too so I really wanted something both engaging and calming to start the weekend off well. Previously I have tried to rid our house of the Friday afternoon grumps by hiding notes, baking in a random fashion and creating funky apple marshmallow smiles.

This Friday afternoon, the weather was kind to us, so I took the fun outside.

Buried at the bottom of our outside play basket is a play parachute – the ones that kindergartens and child care centres use. It hadn’t been liberated from the basket in a long while so I pulled it out and decided the girls could do the rest.

I did herd them towards their slide set and ideas quickly started forming. The purple watering can on the string was Zoe’s slightly under-engineered attempt at a flying fox. Thank goodness it was so close to the ground:)

In the end they spent all afternoon creating different play spaces and hidey holes with each other. In the pic above, they are both snuggled into the red part closest to the ground.

Peek-a-boo you.

Have a wonderful week everybody and thanks for dropping by!

Friday Afternoon Fun – Random Baking

Posted on November 10, 2012 by MudpiesandSunshine.com

This Friday afternoon I needed to pull a substantial rabbit from the proverbial magic hat.

Ebony was going to her friend’s house for a play and Zoe would be coming home with me. If you have more than one child, you will know the pain and the “unfair”-ness of this situation. I was dreading Zoe’s standard whiney “why does she get to have a playdate today and I don’t?”.

I must say I scored a winner when I decided upon Random Baking.

I hope that doesn’t sound crazy or scary. I mean who really wants to let the kids loose in the kitchen?

Fear not – I would advise including chocolate of any description and you will be able to make this activity as easy as you like.

This is what we started the baking session with :-

coconut
rolled oats
cocoa powder
sweetened condensed milk

I introduced the idea to Zoe by asking her a rhetorical question.

“Would you like to make a chocolate slice right now?” “Yes you get to lick the bowl and try some before dinner time”. Idea sold

I told Zoe there was no recipe. I said we would throw the ingredients into a large bowl and then add more of whatever was needed until the mixture was sticky but not runny.

Zoe got stuck in straight away. First the oats.

Next came the coconut. It was about then that Zoe asked “does Ebony get to do this when I’m not home?”. It never ends!

Then apparently it was time to mix these two ingredients together.

Next comes the yummy cocoa powder/chocolate. There were no rules with amounts. Zoe loved that she was completely in charge. However I could see that she was wondering if things were going well but didn’t want to ask too soon in case I started taking over.

I was prepared for the worst case scenario – an inedible slice and a touch of the guilts for wasting food. But really what could go wrong when condensed milk is involved?

Now for the second mix up and look see:

Needs more coconut!

And more chocolate!

Then it was time for the mixture to find a new home in the slice tray. Zoe quickly learnt how heavy the mixing bowls can be and the sort of balance you need to get the job done. In my experience backing off and not helping is always a learning experience for the parent and the child.

I did help out a little bit with the smoothing down and compaction of the mixture. A bit of practical slice education never goes astray.

We left the slice to chill in the fridge while Zoe ahem cleaned up.

The slice turned out quite chewy and very sticky. It spent a little bit of time in the freezer as well. Part of the random baking promise was that we would eat some that night. We decided the slice would be delicious with some icecream

And here is a cheeky smile from one proud little chef!

Thanks for dropping by! Wishing your family a wonderful weekend

Friday Fun – Apple Marshmallow Smiles

Posted on November 2, 2012 by MudpiesandSunshine.com

This is the second post in the Friday Afternoon Fun series. In the first post, I discussed how I wanted to add some “happy” to our Friday afternoons instead of the little bits of grumpy and tired that I was having to get used to.

There are three things Ebony REALLY loves – apples, peanut butter and marshmallows. She is always trying to eat more peanut butter than is good for her, she has one or two apples a day and will gobble up marshmallows like, well lollies, when they rarely come home from the shop.

So when I came across a fun kids snack called “Apple Marshmallow Smiles” – it was love at first sight.

These are the tools of this trade:

I should state now that the bigger the apple the better. We had small to medium size apples at hand. We live and learn as my Dad would say

Slice up the apple. Sounds simple enough but it is important to create two pieces that are the same size. Well not as important as slowing global warming or preventing your child from being bullied – just important if you want these smiles to look gorgeous.

I tried, but I still managed to create one pair that looked a little dodgy.

I just fixed the left side up by slicing a bit off the bottom.

Then I slathered the slices with peanut butter. I would suggest using the smooth variety. We adore crunchy so I fussed around with that for a while.

The peanut butter does require a bit of molding work but thankfully it is VERY forgiving.

So we have apple lips, peanut butter gums, and now for the ginormous, cartoon marshmallow teeth!

Now for the Friday afternoon big reveal…

Happy smiling faces…

and a little bit of peace and quiet to start off our afternoon.

If you try this out, please pop back and let me know. I would love to hear from you!

Thanks so much for dropping by and sharing our Friday fun times.

Friday Afternoon Fun – Hidden Notes

Posted on October 26, 2012 by MudpiesandSunshine.com

Friday afternoon means the end of another long week of school.

Sometimes Friday afternoon also means tired, grumpy children coming home and pushing each others ‘buttons’. This is tiring and frustrating for everyone involved and in order to nip this in the bud I like to make Friday afternoons a bit special. A time for the kids to look forward to. And me too.

I find that a happy Friday afternoon often leads to happy Saturday morning. Yay for that.

My plan is to start a series of blog posts all about making Friday afternoons fun.

This, the first one, I really enjoyed. So did the girls. It involves hidden treasure!

Here are the treasure envelopes and the treasure. The bead is really worth a $1 to the girls – it is part of our chore system which you can read about here.

Just before I picked the girls up from school, I ‘hid’ the envelopes in a tree close by.

As we walked into the area where the treasure was hidden, I asked the girls to put their bags down.

“Why Mum?” they said.

I explained that it was time for a treasure hunt. I told them what they needed to look for….and then they were off!

After a little while I gave them a little clue – “look in the trees”. This helped alot.

Ebony reached up to get Zoe’s envelope for her. Normally, that would have caused a little ripple in the relationship (it’s mine, let me do it etc). In the face of imminent treasure, Zoe was not fussed.

What is in this treasure envelope we wonder?

Yay for being able to read

And super dooper yay for surprises!

Kids LOVE happy surprises don’t they? This activity was quick and easy to prepare, 2 or 3 minutes all up, including hiding the envelopes. I think I enjoyed it more than the kids did.

If you give it a try I would love to hear about it!

Mudpies & Sunshine

Category Archives: Friday Afternoon Fun

Christmas Cookies

Santa’s Sleigh Pretend Play

Friday Afternoon Fun – Taking Christmas Outside

Friday Afternoon Fun – Christmas Tree Decorating

Friday Afternoon Fun – Surprise Movie

Friday Afternoon Fun – Parachute Cubby

Friday Afternoon Fun – Random Baking

Friday Fun – Apple Marshmallow Smiles

Friday Afternoon Fun – Hidden Notes

Follow “Mudpies & Sunshine”

May 2013
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
« Apr
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

Love to share:

Like this:

Love to share:

Like this:

Love to share:

Like this:

Love to share:

Like this:

Love to share:

Like this:

Love to share:

Like this:

Love to share:

Like this:

Love to share:

Like this:

Love to share:

Like this:

Follow “Mudpies & Sunshine”