Cinco de Mayo Treats: Sombrero Cookies

When Henry's teacher asked me to bring Sombrero cookies to help celebrate Cinco de Mayo, I was a little hesitant. This week is not only Teacher Appreciation Week, but Grant's class is learning about Japan {which means I will be making Candy Sushi} and Henry has an award ceremony on Thursday {he got highest GPA in his class for the year!}. I knew I had a busy week ahead of me, but Henry's teacher said she thought the Sombrero Cookies would be really easy to make so I agreed to give them a try:)

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I found the directions on the Family Fun website, bought all the supplies, and then got busy assembling some fun {edible} Sombreros for Henry's class:)

Ingredients:

store bought sugar cookies

a can of white icing

gum drops

nonpareils or sprinkles

Start by putting about half a can of store bought icing into a ziploc bag. Then cut off a tiny piece of one corner to make squeezing the icing onto the cookie easy.

Using your homemade icing bag, squeeze a small bead of icing all the way around the cookie. It doesn't have to be perfect, once it is covered in sprinkles no one will even notice:)

Pour your nonpareils into a shallow dish and then place the iced cookie face down in the plate of nonpareils.

Turn them back over and add a drop of icing in the center of the cookie.

Add a gum drop to the icing then sprinkle on a few extra nonpareils to cover any extra icing.

Once you get your first cookie made and get a feel for it, these are SUPER easy to make assembly line style and the kiddos can even help by sticking on the gum drop!

I hope these Sombrero Cookies help make your Cinco de Mayo a little more fun and a lot sweeter!

A New Aid in the Kitchen

I mentioned in my post yesterday that I got a new toy over the weekend. I'm pretty sure from the hint I gave yesterday that most of you figured out that I got a new mixer:) And you are right! I got a brand new shiny KitchenAid mixer this weekend....kind of an early Mother's Day gift {and a Hey, I've got a 20% off coupon at Kohl's kinda thing too}!

 My old KitchenAid mixer was still kicking after almost 9 years, but it was just barely getting by. When I bake, I bake big...meaning dozens of dozens of cookies, and my old mixer honestly just wasn't big enough. So I did a little research and little price comparison and decided to go with the Professional 600 Series mixer in a lovely shade of Pearl Metallic.

 The box said it could hold up to 14 cups of flour! As soon as I saw that I was sold....that means I can make a triple batch of my chocolate chip cookie dough without straining my new mixer when before my older model was groaning with a double batch.

Here is a shot before she even took her first spin....full of sugar, brown sugar, and eggs:

 And this is what she looks like with a triple batch of chocolate chip cookie dough:

 And one of the best parts about making cookie dough....getting to clean the beater:) This beater is way bigger than my old one too which means twice as much cookie dough left on the beater!

Now I'm off to scoop, bake, and cool dozens of dozens of cookies for Teacher Appreciation Week!

Miscellany Monday

A.

Teacher Appreciation Week starts today, which means my craft room is full of fun teacher gifts that have to be glued, painted, and assembled. Today I sent a fun little bag of highlighters with THIS cute printable on it! Such a fun and easy idea! I have few more things started, but I still have a lot to make too:) Plus I have to send cookies Wednesday and Thursday! I think this may be a busy week!

B.

This weekend I got a new toy that is going to make mixing all that cookie dough a lot easier! I will share a picture with you went I get it up and running on her maiden voyage tomorrow:)

C.

We officially started using our Countdown to Summer Board today....19 days until summer!

If you haven't entered the Elmer's Craft and Tell giveaway, you still have a few more days to win some crafty goodies that you could use to make your own Countdown to Summer Board!

D.

We finally got all the boys' Easter candy put away last night. Seriously there was just so much stuff that it was daunting....so I let it sit on the kitchen counter for over a week! Sad I know, but I told Jason he had to help me clean it up because if he didn't I would want to eat all of it:) Easter candy is evil...and clearance Easter candy is even worse!

E.

Jason and I did the Cinch 5 Day Fast Forward again this week. I am down 10 pounds this morning from what I was last Monday morning! I am SUPER excited and I am also determined to keep it off this time and lose more. I am slowing inching my way toward my Disney World goal:) We are going to Disney in August of this year, so I know I need to be in pretty good shape so I don't die of heat exhaustion....and so I can wear some cute shorts too:)

F.

I have a few giveaway posts I hope to get ready for y'all this week and I have a few guest post to work on too so there may not be a whole lot of crafting going on this week {other than all the teacher appreciation stuff I'm working on}.  I do have a fun Cinco de Mayo snack to share with you and hopefully I can get it up before the actual holiday so if you want to give it a try you can!