Annual Cookie Making

Tonight was our annual cookie making get together.  It is wonderful to have my nephews, their children and my daughter, her husband, Michael, my grandchildren all together for the holidays for a small gathering for the kids..  My cousins were also here for the festivities. 

Although it is a night for the children, the adults have come to love the chill time with family. 

This year I  made life simple.  I purchased sugar cookies.  The children enjoyed placing them on the cookie trays and claiming which ones would be theirs after baking.  After baking and cooling, they “iced” the cookies again with purchased canned vanilla icing.  

Then the fun part…the decorating.  They used various colored sprinkles, sugars and coated candies.  From previous years I learned this could get quite messy, so I used shirt boxes to place the cookies in for decorating.  Worked wonderfully.  Only very few sprinkles escaped.

Then the best part, eating the cookies before having pizza and some play time

This year one cookie Baker was missed. He was feeling under the weather.  No worries, there is always next year.

Another tradition for years to come.

Delicious Dip Making

We had our annual pumpkin carving party.  Prior to the party, the girls came to the house to help me put out the pickings and prepare the dip.

I chose a dip that is easy to make so the girls could be hands on, not to mention. it is delicious and always a hit using very few ingredients.

  We begin by adding the cream cheese to the casserole dish and microwaving it for a few seconds so it is easily spread.

Then we added the chili.  We used canned turkey chili but you can use your own recipe, bean chili, beef chili etc. etc.

Next the shredded cheese.

Next we added a “pepper spider” ( See if you can find the spider on the finished product)  The girls worked really hard on putting him together.  Microwave and serve with tortilla chips.

Hint –  the spider is orange with a white kinda spider web.

May not look so good, but sure is tasty and spooky! It’s always a go to and always a hit.