Hey, turkey!

Kids love holidays. (Almost as much as I do). It is so much fun to spend time with children on  the days leading up to holidays and work on establishing or continuing traditions. At our house, one of our traditions leading up to holidays is (surprise, surprise)  baking cookies. When parents enjoy something and involve our kids, the enjoyment often spreads! My kids love it when I break out the cookie cutters, icing and sprinkles, and we decorate cookies. Last Thanksgiving, they had some friends over a few days before Thanksgiving and made "turkey cookies" together. This year we did it as a family. I had seen the idea in advertisements for Pillsbury (I think) cookie dough last year. These little turkeys are made on round cookies with candy corn tail feathers. Of course they recommended that you use their dough, but you can use any sugar cookie dough to make these adorable cookies that the kids LOVE to decorate because they involve not only cookies and icing, but also candy. You need cookie dough, cut into about 3-inch circles and baked, white frosting, brown frosting (in a frosting bag with a small round tip), candy corn and mini-M&Ms (the kind used for baking) or any other small round candy.

You just spread the white frosting all over the baked cookie (so that the candy sticks on), use about 6 candy corn for the tail (my son has been known to use up to 15), M&Ms for the eyes, and brown frosting to make eyeballs, a little beak and legs. Young children may have trouble with the frosting bag, but they can have fun putting on the candy and you can finish off the rest of the decorating for them. Just be sure that everyone eats lunch or dinner prior to starting this project or they will fill up on SUGAR SUGAR SUGAR while decorating!  Kids love to decorate these little cuties. Moms do too. And people of all ages love to help out with the eating. Everyone loves a cute, festive, holiday treat. In fact, I think I might just go gobble one up right now.