Making cookies

I made these snickerdoodle cookies last night with J1's help. He loves to help me bake but it takes immense patience and sometimes I just don't have it. Luckily last night he was engrossed in eating a lime popcicle so I got to measure most of the ingredients into the bowl before he was there to "help" me. In between, the mister was freaking out because some of his music didn't survive the transfer of computers. I know the music is somewhere but I was baking and just didn't have time, nor did I really care at that moment, to help him. Between that and chasing kids around, my cookie dough was well mixed! It was so soft I couldn't really bake them plus it was almost 9pm so I had J1 help me do one batch and I cooked up the rest this morning while the boys were sleeping. The best thing about snickerdoodles is that J1 is actually extremely helpful. I can roll the dough into balls and put them in the cinnamon sugar and then he rolls them around and puts them on the tray. This is good teamwork since my hands don't get sugar on them, he loves doing it, and it doesn't matter if the balls get squished as they still come out perfectly round. Plus, snickerdoodles are the mister's favorite cookie so we get lots of practice. Too bad for him but these are for our Play Park's end of year picnic today. I used colored sugar since it was fun and different. I got the sugar at Target in their dollar section and they are for the Fourth of July but I don't think anyone will complain. They are made in the USA so I am not even worried about poisioning the kids with China-made things! My recipe is from Allrecipes.com - here is the link: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Mrs-Siggs-Snickerdoodles/Detail.aspx They are the best I have ever had. I used this dairy free margarine called Nucoa in place of the butter and shortening because of J1's dairy allergy but they are still great. I could have used shortening since it is also dairy-free but I was being lazy. If you like those, her peanut butter cookies are also fabulous. http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Mrs-Siggs-Peanut-Butter-Cookies/Detail.aspx I have made these with cashew butter, because of J1's peanut allergy, and they were the best cookie ever!

And I did get the new computer all set up finally. Here is a picture - and yes, it is usually that messy. See the prior post about my cleaning! The only down side so far is that this computer doesn't have the correct connections for my split keyboard so I am making due with this horrible tiny one that makes my forearms ache. That will be the task for tomorrow when J1 is at school!