Cookie disaster!

I have always feared/dreaded baking. A year ago that all changed when I got a kitchen aid mixer. I however still had a secret phobia of making cookies using a cookie cutter. This was an obvious "secret phobia" since I have a drawer filled with cookie cutters, given to me as gifts from others. My fear of cookie cutter cookies doesn't send me into a frenzy, running out of a room like my hair is on fire nor does it make me curl up in a corner and sob. I just am not sure its worth the time and effort. I decided to address my issues head on today! The drive behind my self motivation, is of course to benefit my children. I want "cactus shaped" cookies for their birthday!

First step: making the dough.. Easy! Thanks to the kitchen aid mixer of course... Without that, not a chance!

Second Step: refrigerating the dough for three hours. Not as easy, due to the fact I had a little girl ask me about every 7minutes if it was time to make the cookies.

Third step: rolling out the dough and cutting out the cookies... Pain, yes indeed it was. But not as bad as I thought. Worth it? Eh...

Forth step: baking.. Yeah that was fine.

Fifth step: letting cool completely... A lot like the second step!

Sixth step: making frosting, another pain and worse than I thought but only because my fingers are stained pink!

Seventh step: decorating... Easier than I was expecting! I wanted to decorate using the "flooding" method. It is more time consuming and definitely hard on my back, it is indeed a pain.

With step: clean up... That pretty much goes with out explanation, it's a pain but when your children lick the table clean after decorating, it does cut down on some of the work.

Results: my fear was warranted! However, I know I will do it again, just hoping in time I will enjoy it and not despise it.

Here are some of the cookies we made: I really hope you can figure out which ones I made and which ones the children did!