Recipe for Sugar Cookies

1. Put out butter to soften. 2. Get self and toddler ready to head out to the playground. This will take approximately 30 minutes. 3. Cream sugar with softened butter. Let toddler help. Clean up butter and sugar that is now liberally scattered around kitchen. 4. Beat egg until light, add vanilla extract and mix into butter and sugar while explaining to toddler that this is a stage that needs to be done by mommy. 5. Measure out baking soda, salt and flour and let toddler dump each measuring spoon or measuring cup worth into the bowl and stir it up. Be sure to include a little extra - there will be spillage. Mommy mixes all of it together and put in fridge to chill. 6. Head out to the park and playground. 7. Roll out onto well floured cutting board. Let toddler cut out shapes. Mommy puts them onto baking sheet. When toddler gets bored and wanders off Mommy puts colored sugar onto cookies and bakes. This is a good time to clean up the spilled flour. 8. Cool on wire rack for 5 minutes. 9. Serve with milk and big toddler smiles and hugs. "This is the best cookie day ever!"

Color Walk

Today I cut the top flap off of one of those pulped paper egg cartons, and the Overlord and I colored each cup a different color. Then we went for a walk, well I walked and she sat regally in her stroller, which was NOT my idea. **sighs** As we walked, we looked for natural things in each color. Our rule was that we had to pick it up off of the ground - we couldn't pick it. Well, we did pick one dandelion out of a yard but I didn't think they would mind us picking that. We used a clump of clay for orange, which was otherwise surprisingly difficult to find. The other colors we didn't find were black, gray and blue. We did see a blue bird, but we couldn't find any feathers. I suggested that she draw a picture of the blue bird when we got home, but she had a different idea. She knows that you can mix some colors to make new colors. The problem is that she thinks you can mix up any color. She was quite insistent that we should mix blue. I finally mollified her with a blue berry. She was very excited to share "The Collection" as she called it, with her Daddy when he came home.