Christmas Cookie reality check!

Every now and again, especially this time of year I am forced to do a reality check.  Yesterday I found myself doing one with Christmas cookies.  I have been dreaming and thinking about Christmas cookies non-stop the past few weeks.  In my mind I had the perfect plan of creating, baking, decorating.  Just me and a date with some butter, sugar and my kitchen aide mixer.  With some lovely Christmas music playing in the background perhaps dare I even say... country Christmas music...(she didn't!).  Then all comes to a screeching halt.  You know the sound when you take the needle off the record player.  Yep, that's the sound of my life smacking me in the face! The sound of the 4 year old saying she's hungry for the 18th time that day, and my 9 month old sick of tummy time, and pretty much everything else under the sun...unless it's being held by me. Don't get me wrong, this is the life I love, life for, but it is not conducive to making endless batches of Christmas cookies and decorating them lovingly and perfectly.  It doesn't help when late at night I am catching up on reading some of my favorite blogs like Sweet Sugarbelle and see these:

or another one of my favorite blogs is Glorious Treats.  Check out these adorable gingerbread snowflakes 

So what is a busy momma to do?  Well, you cheat, kind of.  I mean paying a babysitter so I can decorate Christmas cookies is not really practical.  I doubt it is for you either. 

 So I decided I would do a little experiment to see what I could do with all store-bought cookies, frosting, and the help of two darling 4 year olds. This is what we I created, while I had 15 minutes of baby napping and the girls were busy creating their own cookie masterpieces.

Amatuer I know, but not so bad either.  If I had more time I could probably rock out a Santa star or something, I know I could! The thing I liked best about this project was that it was very easy to set up and do, especially with the girls.

Here is what I purchased:

1) Pre-made cookies from grocery store-can be found in the bakery section

2) Decorating tubes of frosting and tips

I have to say, this frosting in a tube taste way better than Royal Icing! Plus the tubes are kid friendly, they had no problem squeezing out the frosting. Here are the 4 year old masterpieces:

I think they did a great job! Colorful and cute! 

So my dream date with my mixer and butter is on hold for now, but this was a fun and great way to satisfy my urge to decorate.