This week, our schedule is a little off.  Abigail normally goes to school on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  Thursday we have mom's bible study, so Tuesday is the only day that we spend just the two of us.  This week, though, I had a morning meeting downtown on Tuesday, so Abigail went to preschool on Monday and Tuesday (I just LOVE her preschool and appreciate that on the rare occasion that I need to move her to another day, they are more than willing to work with me).  So, Wednesday became our day together.  And Wednesday was an extra special day.  We got to pick up Abigail's best friend, Addi, from preschool and have a very fun, very messy cookie-decorating play date.

Abigail and I made up the dough shortly after Gracie went to school and stuck it in the freezer to chill.  Then, just before we left to pick up Addi, we cut the cookies out with several different heart-shaped cookie cutters.  Abigail had an absolute blast with the dough and the cookie cutting.  She doesn't often get to do things like with without her big sister's "help", so this was a special treat for her.

I used my mom's sugar cookie recipe for the cookies and decided to make up some of Our Best Bites' glace frosting recipe to decorate them.  I left most of it white, but tinted some pink and put it in two decorating bottles for the little girls to use.  Just before we left, I put out the cookies, the frosting, and a new bottle of sprinkles.  It was one of those big bottles that Wilton puts out for every holiday...the kind that is actually 5 or 6 little bottles of sprinkles in one little bottle.  I thought they might enjoy sprinkling a little on their cookies.  Ummmm, yeah.....toddlers and sprinkles.  Of course, they'd only use a little.  yeah, that sounds right.


When we brought Addi back, they were both so excited to "paint" cookies. Let m tell about Addi.  She and Abigail are best friends for a good reason....they share a lot of the same personality traits.  They're both very, very vocal and both of them are spirited little girls who like to do things the way they want to do them.  I think spitfires would be a good way to describe the two of them.  I love watching them play togther! 

Anyway, they saw the cookies and the frosting and we so excited.  I took the picture to the right just as they started to decorate.  You can see how clean the plate is and how full the sprinkle bottle is.

Of course, the mess factor quickly escalated from this point.  It wasn't long before sprinkles were coming out of the container like water through a sieve.  The cookies they were decorated began to look like they would break from the weight of all the colored sugar on them.    But, you've never seen two little girls giggle more!

Addi and Abigail have been friends for almost two years now and it's been funny to watch the way they play together change.  When they first met, they weren't even two years old and they spent much of their time playing beside each other instead of with each other.  Then, they went through a stage where they mostly fought when they played.  Now, they're doing great together, sharing more
often than they're fighting and trying to work things out with each other by talking.  I heard Abigail say yesterday, "Addi, let's just play nice together today, okay!  Then, we'll have fun!"  and later, Addi said, "Abigail, you're 'posed to share.  Miss Sharon (their teacher) says we're 'posed to share!"  Oh, they make me giggle these girls.  After about twenty minutes, they had gone through the entire bucket of sprinkles and between the three of us, we'd decorated about a dozen cookies.  And the plates and the table looked more like this:  (Notice the empty bottle of sprinkles


After they finished the cookies, they wanted to eat some strawberries.  Yeah, there were a 1/2  dozen frosted cookies within arm's reach,
but they wanted strawberries.





After that, we went outside and as Abigail says, "played and played and played"  It was such a fun play date!  It feels good to get back into doing things like this.  It's been a bit crazy the last few months, and while the girls have both had play dates, it's been a while since they've had one where I actually put together a cool activity for them to do with their friends.  So, really, this playdate was a fun for me as it was for Abigail and Addi!  I'll leave you with a few more pictures from the day....