Chocolate Fun!

I have been trying to do some fun activities with the kids. The problem is that so many kiddie activities LOOK fun when I read about them, but the actual process of doing it tends to go very differently than it does in my magazines. I have decided that this is due, in part, to the fact that they expect you to only have one or 2 children. Doing projects with one or two children certainly would be more fun, less mess, and much easier than doing it with 5. Still, I tried something yesterday.

Some of you have perhaps heard me gush about the 365 Days of Crock Pot Cooking blog, and she has a fun looking recipe called "Witch's Hats" that I thought we could do. Silly me though. I assumed that it was one of those recipes that she didn't actually need a crock pot for, but needed a recipe requiring one. Oh, how foolish I was. But let me begin at the beginning!

The recipe is this: you make chocolate cookies. You crush M&Ms and then melt them down. You coat the top of a cookie, and coat the top of a sugar cone. Then you pour a spoonful of M&Ms into the cone and put it (top down) onto a cookie, making a witch hat. An interesting dessert, I must say, but it looked like something the kids could do and have fun with. Unfortunately, I made 2 mistakes. I put the chocolate in a saucepan to melt and then I skyped my mom.

The chocolate boiled.

I know, I had it on low on the same stupid burner that took 30 minutes to boil my eggs while on high, and it boiled my chocolate in 20 minutes! Oops. So it didn't quite work so well. The theory was sound, but my execution was a bit off. I think I will try these again, and next time I will use the crock pot to melt the chocolate. Our witch hats did not look like hers and the chocolate was not sticking to the cones as it cooled. So the kids all made at least one good hat, and then frosted their cookies with the chocolate, and then just ate the chocolate.

Here we have a pan of the decadent chocolate cookies, which are chocolaty and rich enough by themselves. This picture also shows what happens while you skype with your mom and your 5 year old asks if she can stir the chocolate and you say yes. I must say that Callie was very cute and tried to wipe up the spilled chocolate, as you can see.

Here we are, all set up and ready to go! We have our cookies, our cones, our pan of melted M&Ms and a bowl of mini M&Ms to go in the cones. There is a completed Witch Hat on the plate and Callie is getting to work.

Delaney was so cute, trying to frost with the thick chocolate.

Joshua thought these were great. And he enjoyed snacking on the M&Ms. Pay no attention to the boxes on the window sill behind him! Those are my goal for this week. To unpack them and find the stuff in them a home.

Check out Marian's cookies! She did a really good job on them and had a good time. She just quietly worked on them without needing any help.

When they were done, which means the chocolate was no longer adhering to anything but tummies, I told the kids to all hold up a cookie to show me. Delaney called out, "I'm going to hold up my hand!" She's so silly!

Despite a large gap in his front teeth, Joshua dived in to his cookie.

Delaney thought she was so clever and bit off the tip of her cone.

Rylee didn't want to be left out, so she got a cone, which she dismantled and threw on the floor.

Marian liked Delaney's method and nibbled on her creation from the top down.

Callie gave the project 2 thumbs up!

I will mention that none of them actually managed to eat an entire cookie. Since we were able to complete so few of them, I didn't eat an entire one either. I did snack on some of the chocolate topped chocolate cookies and that was rich enough to send me on chocolate overload! A rare thing for me! They are SO chocolaty and rich, I don't know if I could eat an entire one either.

And now for something completely off topic, but oh, so cute! Here is my big helper:

I was unpacking this box of books and Rylee came on in to assist. She is so doggone cute!