Citrus Snowflake Cookies

Being snowed in always inspires me to bake,.so in honor of our recent snow days I decided to make  citrus snowflake cookies. These cookies are so easy to make, and look so festive.

Their subtle citrus flavor is a wonderful spin on regular sugar cookies.

They'd be great for Christmas or winter parties.

What you Need

1 tube (16 oz) refrigerated sugar cookie dough.

                                                                 1/4 cup orange juice

1 tbsp orange zest

1 3/4 cups flour

Royal Icing

Royal Icing is a pure white icing that dries to a smooth, hard, matte finish.

It is perfect for decorating sugar cookies.

1 box (16 oz) confectioners sugar

3 tablespoons powdered egg whites

6 tablespoons orange juice or water

1. Let your refrigerated cookie dough set out in room temp. for a bit, to soften

2. Heat oven to 350. Beat cookie dough, orange juice and zest. Stir in flour (dough will be soft)

3. Generously sprinkle flour onto countertop and rolling pin. Divide the dough in half and roll out one half to about 1/4 inch thickness. Cut out snowflake shapes if you have a snowflake cookie cutter or cut out circles (I used a plastic butter lid to cut out circles.)

4. Transfer to ungreased cookie sheet.

Now....you can bake them at this time and make your snowflake designs after they cool (skip to the bottom for the rest of the directions),

Or you can use the 

ORNAMENT PRESS METHOD

 I have no drawing or artistic ability whatsoever and I wanted a beautiful snowflake design so I came up with this method last year when I made these. If you have a plastic snowflake ornament left over from Christmas (we have a ton) then you can use it to press a snowflake design into your cookie. That way you can just trace the design with your icing!

Take your snowflake ornament and if it has glitter, scrub as much glitter off as you can. Then, cover both sides of your ornament with flour (the flour keeps it from sticking AND keeps any extra glitter from transferring) and press it into your cookies while they are on the cookie sheet.

make sure you press the ends well

See, it leaves a pretty clear indention to use as a guide for icing!

OR

of course you can just bake them and skip the ornament step alltogether since they taste great without pretty icing snowflakes too! 

5. Bake them at 350 for 14 minutes. Cool on racks.

6. Prepare royal icing.

Beat Sugar, powdered egg whites and juice or water for 5 minutes. Add water if if you want to thin the icing. Add confectioners sugar if you want to thicken it.

7. When your cookies are cooled, pipe your icing into snowflake patterns OR if you used my ornament method, you can just follow the lines! If you don't have a pippette, you can use a plastic baggie with a tiny hole snipped at one end (thats what I did). Just make sure your icing is thinned a bit.

Not only are they pretty but they are super delicious!

These are perfect Christmas cookies but can be enjoyed as Snow Day Cookies

as we are doing while we are snowed in this weekend.

Happy Snow Day!

Follow Play Create Explore on Pinterest!

More Ways to Follow the Fun!



Crayon Melting on a Warm Plate

L did a crayon melting activity today while I cleaned the kitchen and he loved it!

Warm a plate in the microwave or under hot water.

It doesn't need to be scorching hot to melt the crayons. My plate was very warm to the touch and I explained to L that the plate was very warm. He bumped it a few times, with no reaction.

Just test it first to be on the safe side. 

Give your child some peeled crayons and let them discover the fun of drawing with melting crayons! 

The great part about this is that with hot water, and dish soap, and a scrubbie, the plate washes clean! So you can give your little artist a clean palette when they cover the plate, so they can start again, AND when they're all done, you'll still have a usuable plate! However, don't expect to use the scrubbie again. It remains a bit waxy.

Follow Play Create Explore on Pinterest!

More Ways to Follow the Fun!

Snow Painting

Yay for more snow! L loves playing in the snow and begged to go out early this morning. However, it was like literally 4 degrees out and I just wasn't on board with that. Pitifully he sat looking out his window at the beautiful white snow and so I went outside and brought a bunch inside for some....

SNOW PAINTING

food coloring

Spray bottles, squirt bottles, paintbrushes, and droppers

Some bowls, pans, cups, and a bowl of warm water to warm hands and experiment with melting snow.

L had lots of fun with this! I've been wanting to do this outside in the snow. Last week when it snowed I brought all the stuff outside for snow painting, but with his gloves on, he can't really get a grip on the spray bottle and the squirt bottle slips out of his hands. So, it became an inside project.

With plastic tablecloths, all things are possible!

I found some other snow painting pics from around the internet.

Looks like kids and adults have fun doing this.

Happy snow painting! 



A Month of Worry Comes to an End....

 This picture may make you laugh, especially if you know my son. He's silly and goofy and likes to make funny faces at the camera. However, this picture does not make me laugh...It makes me cry.

A little over a month ago I started noticing L's eye turning slightly inward. I thought it was my imagination at first but it became more often and worse over the next week. It only happened when he was looking at something very near or when he was sleepy. I was so scared though. I knew there was something wrong with my beautiful son. 

We had an appointment for a specialist but not for another month. It was a month Ive been spending in pain and tears. Pain for my son and the not knowing what he was seeing. If his vision was bothering him...hurting him? I had no idea. I'd ask him if his eye was bothering him and he'd say yes and always point to the one that has the problems. He'd often rub it when it turned in and it broke my heart. It got worse as the month went on.

We finally went to a the specialist and it turns out that L has Farsighted Strabismus. It's actually quite common. L is farsighted. When someone is farsighted, it means the eyeball is too short. Light rays from distant objects would normally be focused behind the retina, making near objects look blurry. However, the child's eye can easily (and automatically) accommodate by changing the shape of its lens to focus light rays on the retina. When the child's eye focuses on nearby objects, the eye must accommodate even more. In some children, this process is accompanied by a strong tendency for the eyes to turn in. As a result children will have crossed eyes all or part of the time (like L). However, it can be corrected if you catch it early.

The doctor put a lens up to my husband and I's eyes to show us what L has been seeing when his eye turns in. I immediately started crying. It's very double visioned. My poor baby boy. Suprising though that none of his hand eye coordination or fine motor skills have been affected. He's been accommodating amazingly. But that didn't make me feel any better about what my poor baby has been going through.

SO, the doctor said that L's case is pretty mild. We caught it at a very early stage (he'd have eventually went blind in that eye if we ignored it or thought it would fix itself) and his farsightedness isnt that bad. Doc said its probably totally curable with glasses, but surgery may be required if the glasses don't work. Luckily, the surgery is very successful, quick, and easy if we do end up having to go that route.

We got L's glasses today and I am on the verge of tears right now just thinking about it. He wore them all evening and not once did his eye turn in! Not even while reading a book!....ok, now I am crying. No, strabismus isn't life threatening and I know i'm luckily to have a healthy child, but when ANYTHING happens to your children that causes them discomfort or pain, it's a big deal...it makes your heart ache.

INTRODUCING MY BEAUTIFUL SON...WITH HIS NEW GLASSES!

My little professor :)

L's First Geocaching Trip

I bought my stepson "J' a beginner's geocaching kit which contained several geocache containers so he could make his own.

Our winter has been pretty mild so we decided to spend a few of the warmer hours geocaching.

We hid one and then we found one!

This was my 2 1/2 year old's first time Geocaching!

 We called it treasure hunting and so he said he was a pirate. He was so excited to find treasure!

Night Caching

It was getting late so we used our GEOMATE JR. to find the closest geocache to my moms house so we could find one before we headed over there.

By the time we found it we were night caching!

AND this was L's first Geocache find!

Checking out the loot.

This was definately a kids cache which was awesome since this was L's TREASURE! We had a geocoin so we traded the geocoin for a toy car (gotta give something to take something). Lawson's first geocache treasure.

A GREAT DAY INDEED!

I'm so excited to start Geocaching with L at such a young age! It's such a fun hobby and it promotes adventure and exercise, sharing, and patience.  He'll have many more Geocaching adventures ahead of him!

Follow Play Create Explore on Pinterest!

More Ways to Follow the Fun!

Our Winter Wonderful Day

We had our first snow in 2011. Somehow the southern part of the state got all the snow and we ended up with a light dusting with maybe a half inch or so. Oh well... it didn't stop us from having a good time outside! Miraculously my husband's day off was today and he could enjoy it with us! My brother also came over to enjoy some snow time, which of course L just loved. He loooves his Uncle Mike.


Early in the morning we made a pinecone bird feeder
so they birds could enjoy a tasty snack since the ground was covered in snow.

Then we got on our snow gear and we all headed outside for some driveway sledding!

Don't forget to check out our videos at the bottom of this post!

This is L's first time to really enjoy the snow. Last year he was just too little to really get into it, and he certainly couldn't do anything fun like sledding. BUT NOW he loves the snow and had so much fun!

L and his Uncle Mike about to sled down the driveway.

 Don't ask why my brother has no jacket. He's crazy like that!

My handsome hub right after he busted his butt on the ice and I somehow didn't catch it on camera! Darn.

When we'd had enough of the cold we came in to warm up and dry out by the fire. I loved seeing everyones shoes by the fireplace. It so very much reminds me of wonderful childhood memories.

Then I made lunch and cupcakes for everyone

We had a lazy afternoon and I got some reading done! Loving my Kindle..Thanks Mommy!

Then it was time for dinner. Easy and quick sorta homemade crab bisque, which my husband said I could add to the list of "things I could make anytime and all the time."

Finished the day with some fine family friendly entertainment...Nacho Libre.

 which for some reason I just LOVE

And some good ole homemade Snow Icecream. My favorite ice cream of all time, which is sad because its not like you can just go buy it at the grocery store. Luckily there was enough pure snow on the railing on the backporch to make a batch.

Videos of our sledding fun!

Piggyback sledding

My brother

L LOVES sledding!

And that concludes our winter wonderful day!

Follow Play Create Explore on Pinterest!

More Ways to Follow the Fun!