That's my wonderful husband, who decided at the last minute to come and help me. I've been making cookies for a year now & this is the first time he's helped bake cookies.  Believe me when I say you will need as much help as you can get if you decide to lead a cookie baking/decorating party.

So, let's get right into it, shall we?  How about I cover the what went wrong first? 

I do like to end on a positive note.

 (ooohhh check out that alliteration!)

or... THINGS I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY

*I don't think having a 'making the dough' station is worth it.  It killed all of 5 minutes and only the older kids (all 3 of them) wanted to participate.  This meant that once the ingredients were added to the bowl, I pretty much made the dough myself.  Think about how much easier your day will be if you don't have to lug all of the ingredients with you!

Here the kids and I are adding the vanilla.

*Don't put alot of time and effort into making pretty icing in piping bags, especially if your demographic is a group of 3 year olds.  Eventhough I had the bags tied with those perfect purple tie thingies, the kids managed to squeeze most all of the icing out of the top.  I'd highly recommend just buying the pre-made cookie icing from the store.  The little kids won't know the difference...or care...afterall, it's just going to end up all over the table, floor, and their faces anyway.

*Be sure to ask what type of surface the kids will be rolling the dough on.  In my home, I use my butcherblock and I always tape down my wax paper.  In this particular case, the countertops were super, duper nice and tape didn't need to be stuck to it....which resulted in a whole lot of this....

*Limit your amount of decorations for the kids to use.  In this case (and in hindsight), I think I provided the kids with too many options.  I could have let them use the food color markers only and they would have been just as happy.  Remember, I'm still talking about the three year olds.  They loved the colorful pearl balls I showed you in the last post and they loved the colorful royal icing decorations I brought with me.  I was surprised to see how much sanding sugar, little sugar pearls and bagged icing I had left.  And if you minimize the decorations you take...you minimize clean up. 

*I had two pre-made cookies per kid for them to decorate while some of the other children began rolling out the dough.  I should have taken more.  Take into account how long cookies take to bake and cool.  My roll out sugar cookie recipe takes 9 minutes to bake, but the chocolate mint dough I had pre-made took an average of 11-12 minutes to bake, especially after the kids continued to kneed and roll and kneed and roll it.  Also, take into account that 3 year olds won't actually sit there and decorate for 15 minutes....the cookie will be popped into their mouth within 30 seconds. I guarantee it. Having not enough cookies to decorate in the beginning and trays waiting to be popped into one oven and cookies cooling leaves some serious gap time between decorating the initial cookies and the ones made at the party.  Kids get bored quick! 

*Know what the party thrower expects of you.  Do they want you to have all the kids at one location at a time or is it okay to have several kids and different stations at the same time?  Do they want you to talk to everyone and essentially 'lead' the party or are they okay with you blending in the background and simply supervising?  In my real life job, I lead activities and programs for seniors for a living, so it was unnatural for me to not be talking and leading the party.  The children showed up at random times and consequently I got stuck in the kitchen on oven duty and didn't do much 'leading' at all.

*The kids had a great time.  That's the bottom line.  That's all that matters.  They loved it. 

Check out little Henry.  He made about 25 cookies.  He LOVED rolling out the dough and using the cookie cutters.  He was the only little kid who maintained an interest in the cookie making for an extended period of time.

*My mom had the foresight to take wet naps with us. 

We were able to help keep the kids as sticky free as possible. 

*At the end of the party, most of the cookies looked like this (check out the plate)...

Which is exactly what I meant when I said I needed to let go.

*Definitely nix actually making the dough

*Take atleast two other people with me to help out.  It's great to count on the parents, but it's best to have someone you know really well and are able to ask (demand) for help.

*Raise the demographic age.  The next time around (if there is one), I'd like to actually teach a group of kids interested in learning about cookie decorating.  I love to share my cookie knowledge (the little I have) and I think a group of pre-teen girls would be the perfect age group. 

They're in that learning stage and wanting to act older and this could be right up their alley. 

*If possible, visit the location of the party.  This will help you prepare and plan for the location of your stations.  You'll also be able to scope out the oven situation (double ovens would be oh so helpful!).

*If you do get asked to work with pre-schoolers, take lots and lots of cookies for them to decorate.  Keep it colorful and simple.

And remember to let go.

Here's one last picture of my mom doing an excellent job of coralling the kids and showing them how to roll and cut the dough.

I mentioned it several times, but I need to mention it once more.  I could not have done this party without help.  My mom and my husband were HUGE helps.  They stepped right in, took orders from me and made sure everything that needed to happen did. 

They were the best wingman/wingwoman a girl could ask for.

Thanks for taking the time to read about my first ever cookie birthday party experience.

If you have any specific questions or are thinking about doing one yourself,

don't hesitate to contact me!  We can learn from each other!! 

I gave each child a clear plastic cup and a plastic knife at their seat and I brought the perfect consistency flood icing with me, but I left it white.  Most preschoolers love colors, so I brought all my gel food colors with me and gave my mom (who came to help) specific instructions to squeeze the coloring into the cups herself.  Those gel colors are expensive!! The kids were able to ice a freshly baked cookie any shade they wanted. 

On the table I had all sorts of fun doo-das.  Some clear and colored sanding sugar, some pre-made thick consistency icing in piping bags with fun star tips, some pre-made royal icing flowers and ribbon roses, gold spray food coloring and these awesome pearl balls I found on my last minute run to the store.

I was so excited when I found these pearls...in so many colors. I knew these would be perfect for little fingers to grab. 

More decoration goodies.

Here's a look at what's to come tomorrow!!

Little Henry getting into the swing of things.

Tomorrow I'll break down what went right, what went wrong and have lots of helpful hints!

So be sure to come back as we continue Kooking in Kate Henry's Kitchen!

P.S.  Sorry for the lame picture of me.  I was showing off my brand new apron which I absolutely love!  (This was pre-party can you tell?)

This is one of my favorite pictures from today.  I had just put a tray of cookies in the oven and turned around to see sweet little 3 year old Henry wielding a rolling pin and demanding more flour!!!

It was just about the cutest thing I've ever seen!

Stay tuned until tomorrow when I tell y'all how the cookie party went!

Usually when I get asked to make cookies, I get generic instructions. 

But this time around I was asked to use a cornflower blue shade. 

Thank goodness Michael's had a cornflower blue shade of ribbon that I was able to use to match my icing to (after I bought it of course!)

The other instructions for the order included heart shaped and having the date on them. 

There are so many ways to write a date, but I wanted a bolder font that took up the entire length of the cookie.  For some additional dimention and color I added the dots around the edge.

Then I brushed on some gold luster dust for an extra sparkly finish.

And this morning, after a little snowfall last night, I was actually told to 'walk like a penguin' into work by one of the maintenance guys. 

Red icing next to white icing gives me a slight panic attack so I cheated a little.

I made the razorbacks as a royal icing transfer and then just plopped them onto the white flood icing after they were nice and dry and decorated. 

It worked perfectly and I didn't have to worry about waking up to pink cookies in the morning.

The customer loved them and I sure hope her son's basketball team did too!

I love it when I get to use an invitation for design inspiration.

Because these cookies were getting shipped, I decided to use an edible marker to draw the lines instead of piped icing that could potentially chip off in the mail. 

I used a royal icing transfer for the pram which helped save time.   These are some of my favorite cookies.  I absolutely love the polka dots!!!

I didn't have any mushy gushy lovey dovey Valentine cookie orders this year, but I did have two orders for Sock Monkey cookies...to give as Valentine gifts. 

I changed the design around a bit, mostly with the hat.

Added a heart and that was that!

How about a good laugh?

Check out my lame attempt to be creative.