Tasty Thursday: Chocolate Spritz Cookies

My kids and I love making cookies, it's the perfect activity for rainy afternoons when we can't play outside. I have been wanting to make spritz cookies ever since I got a cookie press during the after-Easter sales. I decided to go with the recipe included in the box for our first batch and they were great!



The cookie press requires a specific texture for the dough, this recipe was perfect! The end result was a very tasty cookie that also looked great!

This recipe makes A LOT of cookies... about 5 dozen! I am really looking forward to making these around the holidays and decorating them in different ways. So many possibilities and I love that I'll have so many to play with just one batch of dough.

We had some technical difficulties with the cookie press initially and while I searched the Internet and found a video that explained how to use it (I love Google!) we decided to just make regular cookies. These were just as good as the spritz cookies and got one batch out of the way while we figured out the press.



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Stars & Stripes Outfits

These are the outfits I made for the kids to wear for the 4th of July festivities. We were so busy that weekend,that I didn't get to take any pictures before they wore them. I finally got some today (although please excuse the horrible light) and thought I would post them for my own archives. Better late than never, right?



My daughter really enjoys wearing A-line dresses,so we went with that again. She picked this fabric as she is obsessed with stars at the moment. The pattern I used is New Look 6504 (View B), which I already used for her Sparkly Butterfly Dress. The red accents, which shelso picked, make the dress very girlie and patriotic.

My son just got the basic matching shorts which he wore with a navy blue polo. I love these shorts on him because they fit perfectly and I don't need to pull them up every five minutes. They are Burda pattern (#9639) which I previously used for these patchwork shorts.

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Number Beanbags

These beanbags (inspired by Cheryl's @ a pretty cool life) have been on my to do list forever. I'm planning on making alphabet ones as well, but wanted to get the numbers done first since my two year old is currently obsessed with them.

I'm going to make a set for each kid, and I'll add the "+", "-" and "=" to my daughter's set since she is really into math lately.



I tried doing the numbers in white but then tried the black and liked it much better.



The kids loved the beanbags and came up with all sorts of games. They matched them to flashcards, threw them at each other while yelling the number, etc. Not quite sure what was going on with the hula-hoop here but they had a blast and asked that I please make them more.

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Completed Pillowcase Dresses for Africa

These are the last two pillowcase dresses for the batch that I am sending to Kristen @ We Are That Family for the Little Dresses for Africa organization. These were made from curtains that my mom bought for her laundry room and never used. I had a great time making these dresses, and I love thinking that they will help make a little girl happy somewhere in Africa.

Here is part of the batch that I'm sending, you can see more detailed pics here and here. I would have loved to make more but couldn't find any affordable pillowcases so ended up using things I had at home that required more work. One of my readers (Hi Kellie!!!) ordered some pillowcases from http://www.pillowcase.net/ and has promised to tell me what she thought of them.



I have been corresponding via e-mail with Rachel O'Neill from Little Dresses for Africa and she confirmed the need for shorts for boys. As soon as I have more information I will post about it since I would really like to help them.

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