Eggshell cookies and jiggly Jell-O

Emily and Lucy visited our house early Friday morning while Erin went to a (yet another) doctor's appointment. (I say yet another as I'm sure she's feeling that way too.) I decided Thursday evening that we would make Jell-O jigglers so I made up sugar free black cherry Jell-O* so it set overnight.

As I was buzzing around getting ready for their visit, I decided we'd make (actually I would make, Emily would help and Lucy would be left to her own devices) sugar cookies with M&Ms in them too. What the heck, these are the things of which memories are made, right?

So we started about 8:45 with Emily fashionably attired in a Senor Frog apron. While my back was turned for maybe two seconds, Emily broke open the egg and dumped it into the dry ingredients (it was supposed to be creamed with the sugars and butter first). She had been quite anxious to break open the egg. That should have been my first clue.

Hmmmm. What to do? Didn't have enough flour to toss all this and start another batch (besides the waste of ingredients). Couldn't tell for sure if there was eggshell in the mix but if there wasn't, it was certainly a very small egg. And how bad could a little eggshell be for you anyway? What the heck - let's just go with what we have.

Note: Emily is still wearing her Captain Feathersword eyepatch from her unfortunate run in with a garment hang tag at JC Penney on Tuesday. She has adjusted incredibly well to it, including having ointment put in it three times a day. The patch comes off later on Friday. For more hair raising details about that adventure, visit daughter Erin's blog.

Emily's favorite part was sampling the butter, brown sugar and other ingredients. She and Lucy both enjoyed eating the batter from the mixer beaters. Yeah, I know batter probably isn't great for you but that's most of the fun of making cookies, according to me. I must admit that I ate a bit of the batter myself. Just a kid at heart I guess.

Then we dropped the batter from a spoon, pushed M&Ms into them until we ran out of M&Ms, then waited for the cookies to bake. The audience was most impatient as I took the cookies out to cool. Emily sort of understood they were too hot to eat but Lucy was just impatient. The girls munched on cookies while I finished up making the second batch. Grandpa was lucky enough to select the first cookie with eggshell shards in it. Yum.

Then we cut shapes out of the Jell-O. I know Emily has had Jell-O jigglers before but not recently that I'm aware of. Both girls were fascinated by the jiggly squiggly shapes. I set up their princess table and chairs in the family room and they settled down to watch Little Einsteins and eat Jell-O until Mommy came to claim them.

The cookies themselves? Eh - they were OK. Nothing to submit to the Pillsbury Bake Off. The kids may never remember making cookies today but I'll remember.


*Did you know that Jell-O originated in LeRoy, New York? There's even a Jell-O Gallery. We live within 30 miles of LeRoy but have never been to the Jell-O Gallery. Perhaps we will discover we have a life and go visit it one day.