Happy Monday! At least I think it’s Monday. We’ve been in the house for so many days now it’s all kind of a blur. I’m pretty sure I’m going to emerge from this quarantine 60 pounds heavier, with some seriously ingrown eyebrows, and a tick from these crazy kids (mom of four here). But in all seriousness, I’m super excited to bring you these Cookie Dots from Allyson Burns at the Better Baker Club. We already know that baking with kids is a great way to spend time together and learn some new skills. But these cookie dots are SO much more than that.

Allyson has been been baking for more than 25 years and is the owner of 4 successful bakeries! I know your going to love her Cookie Dots as much as I do, and don’t forget to check out all the great recipes she has at the Better Baker Club!

If you’re stuck at home with kids due to school closures and this pandemic is keeping you isolated and running out of things to do, then you’re going to love this baking activity for cookie dots. It will keep moms, dads, and kids entertained while learning some practical skills and having some educational fun. It’s a win win. 

So, what is this blog post about and what will you learn from it?

This recipe is for a delicious little cookie that bakes up light and crisp. It’s easy to mix because it requires only a mixing bowl and a spoon (you’re welcome). Since getting out of the house during this pandemic is not advisable and the stores have limited supplies, I’ve made this recipe work with ingredients you probably already have in your pantry.

Get ready for a few hours of fun while you and your kids nibble your way through baking, measuring, sorting, counting, and learning.

What do children learn when baking?

Baking with kids gives them practical experience with many essential skills such as reading, following directions, and measuring. Getting involved in cooking helps your child to develop fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and even covers some basics of math and science. 

No matter what age or skill level, there is something for everyone to do. 

Older kids– Reading, following directions, measuring, fine motor skills and real-life skills like using the oven, washing dishes and running the dishwasher. 

Younger kids– helping to stir, scoop and measure are all great for developing motor skills and who doesn’t love learning to crack an egg? 

This recipe has different jobs for different skill levels:

• Measuring with measuring cups
• Stirring
• Cracking eggs
• Using a pastry bag to pipe cookies
• Taking pans in and out of the oven
• Counting/Sorting
• Washing unbreakable items in warm soapy water

 What are manipulatives and how can you use them?

Manipulatives are objects that parents, teachers, and homeschoolers use to help kids learn early math skills. By allowing them to hold, move and manipulate the pieces they can solve simple problems. With this baking activity for Cookie Dots, you will have plenty of multi-color pieces to create your edible games and learning opportunities. 

Here are some games you can play with the cookies to get you started:

• Tic-tac-toe
• Checkers
• Learning letters
• Simple math 
• counting
• Pattern games

Of all the activities you can do with these colorful cookie dots, eating them is the most fun!

Here’s the project rundown:

1. Spend about an hour together in the kitchen getting some practical life experience like reading, following directions and measuring. 
2. Choose fun, age-appropriate games to play using your cookie dots.

Mixing time: 10 minutes

Baking time:10 minutes per tray. ( Makes about 4 trays so 40 minutes baking total)

Clean up: 20 minutes 

Level of difficulty: easy

Skills: piping with a pastry bag

Tools: pastry bag or freezer zip lock

Easy is the name of the game for this project

That’s why I made this recipe work with ingredients you probably have on hand already. 

Here is a list of ingredients you will need:

• Shortening
• White and Brown Sugar
• Flour
• Egg
• Baking Powder
• Coloring

This recipe does not require an electric mixer or a hand mixer. One big bowl, a wooden spoon, and some eager helpers will get the job done. 

Here is a list of the equipment you will need:

• Large mixing bowl
• Wooden spoon or rubber spatula
• One cup and ¼ cup measurer
• ½ teaspoon measurer
• 2-4 small bowls 
• 2-4 Teaspoons
• Sheet pans
• scissors
• Parchment or silicone sheets
• Hot pads 
• Cooling rack. 

Let’s get this activity started!

Mix

Just measure the shortening, granulated sugar, and brown sugar into a big mixing bowl. 

Take turns stirring until all the ingredients are well blended. 

Stir

Crack an egg into a small bowl and remove any shell pieces. Pour egg into shortening and sugar mixture and stir until everything is well blended and smooth. 

Measure

Measure the flour by spooning it into the one cup measurer and level off with a butter knife or spatula. Add flour to the mixing bowl. Measure in the baking powder and salt. Stir well to combine. 

Color

Now that we’ve got the basic dough it’s time to add some color. Divide the dough into equal portions and place into small bowls. You can decide how many colors you want to mix based on what food coloring you have on hand or how you are planning on using the cookie dots. 

Add drops of color to the dough to get the desired shade. The colors will fade a little bit while baking, so do use more coloring if you want vibrant colors. The more colors you make, the more fun they can have. 

Now its time to place the colored dough into a pastry or freezer zip lock bag. Be sure and use freezer bags and not regular sandwich zip locks. The plastic is thicker on freezer bags and can hold up to the squeezing. 

The easiest way to do this is by folding back the top and dolloping the batter into the bag. Squeeze it towards the tip and twist to close. 

With a pair of scissors, cut the tip off the pastry or zip-lock bag leaving a small opening about ¼ -½ inch big. 

Onto a parchment or silicone lined sheet pan, squeeze out tiny dots of batter about the size of a dime.

These cookie dots don’t spread much so place the dots in rows about ½ inch apart. Depending on the size of the sheet pan you are using, you may be able to get 40-50 cookies on a tray. 

Bake

Place cookie dots in a 325-degree oven for 10 minutes. Allow cooling on the pan for about 10 minutes. Remove cookies by lifting the silicone sheet or parchment paper and slide the cookies onto a cooling rack. 

Repeat this for the remaining batter and colors.

Enjoy this extra time with your family. Stay healthy and safe. 

Try these Oatmeal Chocolate Cookies!

The post Fun Baking Activity for Kids at Home appeared first on The Good Wives Blog.

Okay guys, with everything that’s been going on lately I thought I needed take some time to talk about what’s been on my heart and to help put a few things into perspective. Or at least to share my perspective on some things because I think we’ve been given a gift, and this might be the best thing that has ever happened to your family.

If you know me, then you know that the coronavirus has been on my radar since the beginning. Like straight out of Wuhan beginning, and I bet there are a few people reading this right now that would even admit to thinking I was a bit crazy (don’t worry I forgive you).

Long before toilet paper was a thing, I was stocking up on goods and essentials, and putting them into my handy dandy coronavirus kit. Now, before you pull out the pitch forks, I should clarify that I am not currently hoarding copious amounts of Charmin in my basement. I simply bought what I thought we would need for a few weeks in the event that we were quarantined. I wanted to be prepared. And like you, I had no idea what to expect. I still don’t.

It didn’t take long for things to implode, and for fear and anxiety to sweep through leaving grocery store shelves empty and people running around with way more canned spam then we will ever actually eat. Don’t act like you didn’t buy it too. It just shows you how bad the situation really is though. And I’m not trying to dis canned spam here,  but let’s be real, no one was ever really eating that stuff, were they? All I am saying is that there has to be a lot of fear in the air for it to be selling like hotcakes.

Anyway, the point is its bad.  It’s canned spam bad ,and there is no shortage of bad and scary news everywhere you look. That combined with the uncertainty of our jobs, our business’s, and our economy, it’s a recipe for a heart attack. Or at least a few sleepless nights and tired mornings. Add a bunch of cabin fevered kids to the mix and I don’t think I need to tell you where this is going. I have a feeling I’ll be sending out an S.O.S. all over again.

Like honestly. Saturday morning, I woke up and it was the strangest feeling. Almost surreal. Like I was in a dream. We had NOTHING to do. I mean nothing. No sports practice, no doctors’ appointments, no coaches’ clinics, no play dates. No date nights, no church get together’s, no family dinners and no swimming lessons. Nothing. literally nothing. It was like culture shock to my soul. I mean I’ve dreamed about this day for so long and here it finally was. Truthfully, in my dreams, I was actually checked into a 5 star hotel with no phones and no kids, ordering room service in a bathrobe but hey, close enough. The schedule was clear and this was as close as I was going to get.

In all seriousness though, I hated it. I had no idea what to do with myself. I felt restless all day. Like I was supposed to be doing something and I wasn’t. Saturday turned into Sunday and Sunday into Monday and the initial shock of nothingness began to wear off. As the news worsened and the cancellations increased (RIP restaurant dining), I realized that we may be in this for the long haul, and I started to feel like maybe I could actually relax and be okay with this. Like I could begin to enjoy the time we had together as a family. Instead of feeling guilty for not doing something. And I started to wonder… How many people were like me?

On any given day our family is pulled in a million different directions. Take Tuesdays for example. Aaron, (my husband), will get home for supper at 5. We eat, and then our son Ryan has cross-fit at 5:45. Our son Rivera has kids club at 6:30. Then Ryan needs to be picked back up at 6:45 and driven to youth group for 7. Rivera needs to be picked up at 8:15, and Ryan needs to be picked up back up at 9. Somewhere in between all that our oldest daughter needs to be driven to and from work, and our youngest needs to be put to bed. Not to mention we usually have a few extra kids in tow for carpool.

Even just writing this is confusing and exhausting but the truth is, we live like this every day. I’m not saying it’s wrong. It’s just life and we just do it, and to be honest, I don’t think we’re the only ones.

How many families out there have been running around for the last 5, 10 or even 15 years, racing from program to activity and back, running so fast that they barely had a chance to think about it? How many husbands and wives have spent years passing each other in the arena or in the parking lot or even at the front door trying to cart everybody everywhere only to meet at the end of the night tired and exhausted barely ready to do it all again tomorrow? How many of us have been cruising on autopilot burning the the stick at both ends while our marriages and relationships suffered? And then I started to think, this might be the best thing that could ever happen to a family.

A complete and total shutdown. As if all of a sudden time stood still and all we had to do was be together. This has never ever happened before. And it will probably never happen again. At least not in our lifetime.

And there it is. A new perspective. I’m looking at this quarantine or to be politically correct, “social distancing” as a blessing. Yes, a blessing. As a gift of time and togetherness that no parents and no families before us ever got and probably never will again. The gift of family movie nights and of board games. The gift of sleeping in, and of pancake breakfasts. Of after dinner walks in the park and of parking the car in the driveway and leaving it there for days. The gift of doing absolutely nothing, together. The gift of family.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my family, and my husband and I are still going strong. But that doesn’t mean that we haven’t been missing out. That doesn’t mean that we haven’t been sacrificing quality time with each other for a packed schedule, and it doesn’t mean we haven’t been putting our marriage on the back burner. I think anyone who is married with kids can agree that more often than not our marriages become the last priority. All I am saying is that THIS IS A GIFT. Don’t waste it! Don’t spend your days stressed out about things that are out of your control and don’t spend days on end being anxious about things that may or may not happen.

It’s going to be okay. You will be okay! And everything will eventually work itself out. If it doesn’t, we will all be here to pick you up.  Your friends, your family, your community. You’re not alone and the world is not hanging on your shoulders. It’s going to be okay.

Yes, times right now are scary and yes there is a lot of uncertainty, but we have an amazing opportunity here. We get to write the story. We get to decide what they will say about us 100 years from now, and we get to decide how we reacted and how we treated others. You decide if we are remembered for our toilet paper wars or how we came together as a family, as a community, and as the world.

For the first time ever, we have been given the gift of perspective. To strip everything away and to see what truly matters. Family. Community. People.

So do me a  favor, stop reading the news every five minutes and put the phone down. I promise you; you’re not missing much. Dust off the board games and the puzzles and grab a pair of your comfiest pants and bunker down. Order the take out and support the local restaurant who desperately needs your business and for goodness sake, stop with the toilet paper. Spend time with your spouse after the kids are in bed and remember why you liked each other in the first place. Enjoy this gift while you have it because before you know mother nature will flip the switch and we’ll back to business as usual. Hopefully stronger and a little more united because of it.

Lots of love,

Laila

The post This Might Be The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Your Family appeared first on The Good Wives Blog.

A few years ago Aaron and I started doing something a little non traditional and I honestly think if you tried it you would do it too. We really weren’t planning on doing it, it just sort of happened and I can honestly say we haven’t looked back. We’ve been doing a toy free, guilt free Christmas, and I have to say, WE LOVE it. And when I say we, I mean ALL of us. Kids and everything. I am so glad that we are doing it, that I just had to share. Now before you write me off and silently judge me for ruining my kids life, just hear me out.

Years ago we were just like most people. So caught up in stress and the chaos of Christmas that we barely even had a chance to see it and then it was gone. We spent so much time wondering what we were getting the kids, driving around like maniacs, trying to get our hands on a stupid rainbow loom because our 12 year old daughter JUST HAD to have one. Lining up at a Miko Toy warehouse like cattle being led to the slaughter. Only to wake up on boxing day with a whole lot of junk in the house that our kids don’t really need and probably won’t remember come next year. Exhausted and happy that it’s all over. It sounds crazy, but I know you know it’s true.

Like us, our kids have to much stuff. Like way to much stuff and honestly it makes me feel gross. We buy, gather, and collect because we think that it will make us (or them) happy. But it doesn’t. Maybe in the moment, but nothing kills the mood in a house like a pile of unused and unnecessary junk. And yet we keep it. And then next year we add to the pile. Marie Kondo would be so unimpressed. Year after year we would tell ourselves, next year will be different. And although our intentions were good, we always ended up in the same boat. Can you feel me?

Then something happened. We got tired. We got tired and unhappy and we didn’t like the example we were setting for our kids. We knew something had to change. So we decided we weren’t going to do it anymore. We weren’t’ going to buy into the craziness and we would test the waters and pray that our kids (and us) survived. And you know what? We didn’t just survive. We thrived!! Instead of giving gifts of toys and electronics, we gave an experience. One for each child, Mom and Dad too, all tied together over the holidays. And I can tell you that we’ve been doing it ever since.

Now I know what your thinking, “my kids would never be okay with that” or, “what would they play with on Christmas?” and of course,”It takes the fun out of Christmas.” I know everything you’re thinking because I thought it too. But can I tell you that I was wrong! Our kids actually love this tradition and love spending the time with us even more. And you know what else. They remember EVERY SINGLE TRIP. That’s right, if you ask them what they did for Christmas for the last 4 years they can tell you. In detail. Go ahead and ask your kids what they got 4 years ago and what are they doing with it now?

One year the whole family got tickets to the World Juniors in Buffalo. We stayed at the Indoor Fallsview Water Park and went to Cracker Barrel for lunch (that was for me clearly). We left a few days after Christmas and spent New Years Eve in the falls so Felicity could see her favorite concert while I slept in a hotel bed with room service. It was SO MUCH FUN! Another year we went down town Toronto for a little stay-cation with an indoor pool, and last year we went big and did a trip to Ohio/Florida and finished off with a cruise.  The kids got sunglasses and Royal Caribbean flip flops in their stocking and it was so much fun to see the running around going crazy with excitement.  Obviously every year can’t be like that but you get the idea. Our kids have come to love the idea of spending time together as a family, and so have I. We have made memories and built bonds and it feels good to know that we can still enjoy Christmas without having the pressure of purchasing elaborate gifts and junky toys. It feels good to know that the gifts we give have lasting effects on our family.

Our kids still get to open presents. I’d be lying if I said there were no gifts under the tree each year. But we have  just became strategic and intentional about it. Any tangible gifts would have to be practical or useful. A new hockey jersey if we were taking them to a game. A baseball bat or a gift certificate for an activity we think they would enjoy. We would even print off hotel pictures or logos of the activities we had planned and wrap them up. The year we went on a cruise, we left a envelope on the tree that said your gift is on the TV. When they ran over and turned it on it was playing a Royal Caribbean Adventure of the Seas promo. They freaked!

Guys, so many of us are missing the point of Christmas and I fear we are training our kids to do the same. What kind of examples and traditions are we passing down to them? We run around from house to house tired and exhausted because we feel guilty for not seeing absolutely everyone. Our kids are overloaded with gifts at each and every stop. And then we over spend to over compensate, trying to make sure our kids feel happy. And if we’re honest, I don’t think we really feel all that good about it. We are missing the point. We are missing an incredible opportunity to bond together as a family. And we are missing the chance to show our kids whats really important in life. And I’m just here to say, we don’t have to.

We don’t have to accept this as the norm anymore. We don’t have to go everywhere and see everyone and spend money on useless items because we think our kids will somehow be deprived if we don’t. Our family doesn’t and you know what? We couldn’t be happier. Our lives are crazy busy. With work and kids activities, responsibilities and other commitments,  spending quality time together as a family is becoming harder and harder to do these days. It constantly gets put on the back burner, and yet its one of the most important things we can do for ourselves and our children. I can tell you that family vacations and outings bring you together in a way like nothing else can. Memories and bonds are made that last a lifetime. My kids still talk about swimming in hotel pools and ordering Papa Johns pizza at 11 pm to this day.

Guys, wouldn’t it be nice to actually enjoying the holidays?  To only purchase what you could actually afford and not feel bad about it? Instead of running around and trying to figure out what i’m buying, then spending hours wrapping everything. I have the peace of knowing that we get to spend the holidays doing fun family activities together, uninterrupted and guilt free. I get to relax and get my festive cheese ball eating sweatshirt on while having lots and lots of red wine. Oh and then after all that ACTUALLY ENJOYING TIME WITH MY FAMILY! Yeah that’s right I said it.

Christmas is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. And I think we all do a great job of pretending that it is. But I bet if we took a second to really evaluate what we’re doing, we could all admit to buying things we didn’t need and running around to parties we didn’t enjoy only to impress people (and kids) who really shouldn’t care. But what if it actually could be the most wonderful time of the year? What would that look like for you? What if instead of toys and junk, chaos and stress, we were intentional about our gifts? What if we didn’t over book and over commit and actually enjoyed our time with our loved ones. Spend time together but if you can’t fit everyone in over Christmas without keeping your sanity, take turns. Aaron and I do one year with his family and the next year with mine. Of course we would LOVE to see everyone over the holidays but we have chosen quality over quantity and refuse to spend the holidays driving from one place to another, burning the candle at both ends.

And listen, toys are not bad. If that’s all you are hearing me say then you have completely missed the point. I’m not saying I will never buy a toy at Christmas again. Toys are not the problem. The problem comes when we overload and over spend on things that don’t add any value in our lives, or worse, do the opposite. The LAST THING our kids need is another IPad or video game that will only fuel their addiction to electronics. You can’t complain 11 months of the year that your kids won’t get off the iPad and then buy them the newest version for Christmas. Just sayin.

This Christmas choose quality over quantity. Choose to be intentional about your gifts and about the time you have. And most of all choose to enjoy your family and those delicious festive cheese balls because of course it’s the most wonderful time of the year.

Lots of Love,

Laila

The post The Toy Free Christmas appeared first on The Good Wives Blog.