Cookie Therapy

Baking cookies, not eating them this time.

When planning Dominick’s party I found this really cool cookie recipe online for “play dough cookies.” Basically multicolored cookies swirled up on a lollypop stick. I figured the kids would love to eat these crazy colored cookies.

I decided to make them the weekend before because I knew they’d be really labor incentive. Here’s a step by step.

First you make a whole bunch of cookie dough from scratch. Easy enough. Then you have to quarter the dough and die them four different colors….

Okay, how do you actually die cookie dough? Genius me put the dough in a gallon zip lock bag and added some gel color and squished away. It worked really well. Wish I would have thought of this before I did the first color and ended up with bright yellow palms trying to need it together.

Let the dough sit in the fridge for a few hours. Once hardened, start making little ¾ inch balls out of each color. Now, get ready to sit down and put on some music because this takes FOREVER!

To make the actual cookie, take one ball of each color and roll them together to form on large swirled ball.

Then roll the large ball out into a 1 foot long snake.

Then coil the snake around itself to form the swirled cookie. This is where true clay forming technique comes in. You could so tell my first few cookies… they looked awful. Finger dents her and there, uneven thickness. By the time I rolled out my 40th cookie, I was an old pro. This was one of my first cookies, very lumpy.

Gently insert cookie pop stick and bake. At the end of the night I looked at all my cookie pops and felt they were TOTALLY worth the effort. They looked great.

All the kids loved them at the party. They couldn’t wait to pick out their cookie and take them home. I have to say they didn’t taste all that great, but they sure looked good.

Definitely therapeutic.

Easter Fun

We had a great Easter this year. Much different from last year when the little guy was only two weeks old. He didn't get the whole look for the eggs thing, but he sure enjoyed dying them!

He loved eating them too! I have a special memory growing up of looking at a baby picture of mine where I'm covered in deviled eggs... we tried to recreate the special moment... Dominick happily agreed.

Frank had to work on Easter Sunday, so I was off to celebrate with out him. We spent some time at both parent's houses. I had dinner with my parents and my mom made an amazing fresh ham. I have never seen Dominick eat so much! And this was after he had all those deviled eggs!

We then went to Frank's parents house for desert. We took a few commemorative photos. Here's Dominick in his Easter outfit. His hair is so stiff from the special hair treatment he gave himself with the deviled eggs. Plus he was exhausted with no nap all day!

Here is Dominick and his two second cousins, Reese (3 1/2) and Christopher (1). Like the bunny ears? Of course that was my idea!

Yeah, they made me wear these... my brilliant idea backfired.

Off with the spiffy duds and we slipped Dominick into something a little more comfortable. This was his FIRST time sitting in grass...

He was soooo excited!

The soccor ball was also very exciting.

I made some special cupcakes, you know the kind you bake in icecream cones? I knew Reese would LOVE it, and she did.

The Prince Turns One

On Dominick's actual birthday, he headed into daycare with home made banana bread muffins and bubbles for all his class mates. He wore his special b-day boy shirt. Don't you just love the suspenders?
After school we had a mini celebration on Dominick actual birthday. This consisted of watching him destroy an elmo cupcake. Fun time was had by all. He even had icing down his back!

We had quite the celebration for Dominick’s first birthday party. I’m so glad everyone could join us and celebrate. It was VERY tight and people were all over my in-law’s house. We had about 50 people come and this is just basically my husband’s extended family and a few of my friends and their kids. All in all, we had a great time.

We had an amazing punch that Kristen found online and served gigantic subs, baked ziti, salads, sausage and peppers. We had plenty of food for everyone. I really regret not taking enough pictures.

Each of the kids got to make a foam craft or color. That kept them busy for at least 20 minutes. We had the families who attended sign a commemorative plate and photo mat. We’ll use the plate every year for Dominick’s cake. We had lots of balloons and decorations.

I made a special “smash” cake for Dominick. I made the icing from scratch and I had these high expectations to make the perfect cake with rolled fondant cut outs… Well, I had a little trouble with the icing and it went down hill after that.

In the end, it looked great, but it was a really long night. I still am going to keep my promise to make Dominick’s b-day cakes from here on out! I just need some practice.

Notice anything wrong? Yeah, well, I spelled my own son’s name wrong! That just goes to show you how tired I was! Not sure if you know I am very dyslexic and letters just confuse me. Figures, I minored in English... We didn’t even notice it until the morning of his party. With a little snip, that extra o turned into an i.

Dominick enjoyed his smash cake. And smash he did.

Grammie led the group in a rousing game of Simon Says.

We ended the night with another round of food after everyone left. We had some more wonderful punch and opened all of his gifts. Dominick really made out. One of his faves is this ride on Mickey Mouse airplane! He doesn’t’ actually ride on it, but he walks behind it. Some more faves a pop up Thomas the Train play house and a Thomas the Train Tank that follows you around the house. It responds to your voice command. It’s super loud, but Dominick seems to like it.

We headed home with a very tired little boy and exhausted mommy and daddy.
We couldn’t have done this party with out the love, support and hard work from Frank’s parents and his sister, Kristen.

Looking forward to next year. It will be way less people and a lot more fun!