When you are baking with children, you can be rest assured it will be a little messy, it will take a bit more time and it will take a lot of patience. However, if the process becomes the focus, not the end product - the results are magical. This year, I set up a little icing and decorating station for the three cousins (Ezri said no thank you this year) and just let the kids decorate their own way. I love how the cookies turned out and we have been enjoying them with a cup of tea most days. 

Ok....disclaimer.... I did decorate one mitten cookie! It looked like so much fun I had to jump in!

Sometimes I make sugar cookies from scratch, but this year I took a simpler, less stressful approach and used a mix from Krusteaz for their butter vanilla sugar cookies. The boys helped me add the ingredients (the mix, egg and oil)  in our Kitchenaid mixer. 

Jake usually just mixes the items for me, but this year he really wanted to be involved in the rolling and cutting out process. So, I showed him how to roll with a bowl of flour and a rolling pin and he loved it! Yes, it took 10 minutes to roll out the dough, but honestly I would do it again just to see how proud he was of what he accomplished. 

And....because her big brother was doing something she had to try!

We choose three different shapes to keep things simple. Jake loved the frosty snowman the best, but I loved the little mittens. You could even decorate them in pairs for a cute treat for your neighbours!

Everyone had their own mini bowl of icing and I set up a small sprinkle station in small cups. I find it works best this way with sprinkles otherwise the shaker ends up all over the floor!

End result: Pure magic! This picture makes my heart so warm because I know they were made with so much love! I even kind of see an attempt at eyes and a nose on the Frosty!! Sometimes it's important to take a simpler approach and let your children just create. I love that when I use the Krusteaz mixes, my prep time is minimal so that we can enjoy the process so much more!