Valentine's Day Cookies + Play Date {for mommies too!}

I guess my penchant for party planning has finally rubbed off on my 3 year old. For the second time, she requested to invite a few friends over to make cookies (I never blogged about Ella's Cookie and Cocoa Social in December- I guess you'll have to wait until next year to see it!).  So we invited a few friends from our new dance class to join us for lunch and cookie decorating immediately after ballet. 

Here's the thing- I committed to do the party at 5pm the night before and sent out text message invites (yea, real classy). Thankfully, we have friends here who are always up for an adventure and put up with me and all the craziness involved my scatterbrained-ness and propensity to go overboard for even the smallest event.It was a little disorganized, but the kids had fun and so did we. So nothing else matters, right?

I had the lunch trays for the kids ready to go so that when they walked through the door from dance we could eat. I had the mommies bring all the snacks, so I just provided heart-shaped sandwiches, juice boxes for the kids, Caesar salad wraps for the moms, and since it was a pot-luck, the other mommies took care of the rest.  While the kids got cheese, crackers, carrots, and apples we got pasta salad, homemade banana bread, strawberries and chocolate-covered almonds to nibble on. Now we're talking!

After we ate, we took turns decorating cookies with our kiddos.  Oh to have a kitchen table. We have a breakfast bar and there's only room for three kids and a high chair. We had six little girls at our play date, so we did two shifts of three and it worked out perfectly. I kept it simple with 3 different sizes of cookies, white frosting only, and a whole bunch of sprinkles and candy hearts.

I think I'll try a variation on this theme throughout the year- a lunch potluck and then decorating cookies or some sort of craft.  It was easy to put together, and really fun to have it low-key enough to have time for the little details I enjoy putting together.

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

Ella made all of these bite-sized cookies:

 

These are Ella's creations from the day. I let her go to town with the frosting and sprinkles and she was so proud of herself for making them all by herself.

There's still plenty of time to host a cookie decorating party. I say, go for it!