Muffin Tin Monday & Not-So-Beautiful Imperfect Cookie Baking

(***Note: My original Imperfectly Beautiful post is below this one.)

Muffin Tin Monday: Peanut Butter Theme
I tried to do a peanut butter theme today (food that is yummy dipped in peanut butter). It only accounts for half the food, but it was fun. I'm one of those people who gets more creative with specified parameters. But be careful if you have really young kids 'cause peanut butter is a choking hazard.
Don't forget to check out http://sycamorestirrings.blogspot.com/ who created this Muffin Tin Monday idea!
Here's what's in mine from the top, left to right:
guacamole Pringles, salami, Ritz crackers, peanut butter, cheese cubes, chow mien noodles, pretzels, apples, mandarin oranges, pecans, marshmallows, and chocolate chips.
It is seriously amazing the new stuff BFG is willing to try and how much she eats just by putting it in the muffin tin. And I promise that she actually eats more healthy foods by having the sweets there are an option too. Weird.

So, after our Muffin Tin lunch, I had promised we would make cookies. I had this Crayola kit for Cinnabear Cookies or something I'd gotten on clearance at Target after Christmas. She'd only been waiting for 6 months to do this, so I thought Why not today? Big mistake! We went from oh-I'm-so-ahead-on-my-SHE-cards-this-will-be-so-much-fun to a flour covered Twilight Zone in less than five minutes. I kid you not. So much stuff went wrong making these cookies I thought it was 9:00 pm on Christmas Eve.
First of all, if you have this kit, throw it away. It was absolutely awful! I had to add a little bit more water to the dough because it wasn't mixing at all. So, then I'm supposed to knead the dough for 2 minutes. Well, it was a sticky, drippy, globby mess. If you know me, you know how much I hate sticky messes. My hands are covered in this mess so I manage to use my elbows or something to get out my canister of flour. I get it open and instruct BFG to put flour in my hands. But, ya'll, it did not work. It was still sticky, goopy, drippy. Well, while I am running around the kitchen screaming, "This is so GROSS!" trying to get to the sink and dripping gobs of it on the floor in the process, BFG makes it "snow" in our kitchen with the flour. Isn't that fun? I am so absorbed with the blob I don't even notice until a few minutes later as I'm finally washing the rest of the dough down the drain. So, she managed to spread her snowfall all over the kitchen and dining room floor. Well, now I'm panicking a little 'cause I promised her cookies, naptime is getting closer and closer, and the floor is covered in flour. Luckily, I had a sugar cookie Betty Crocker mix and I decided to make it by the roll-out cookie recipe because BFG had already gotten down every jar of sprinkles she could find. I wasn't gonna get out of this without doing real frosted sugar cookies. I also decided that this was a perfect time to set a good example for BFG on how to react positively when things go wrong. I paste a smile on my face and fix a sing-song tune in my voice.
Well, I just want someone to tell me how many tablespoons of butter is 1/3 cup? It wasn't on my wrapper and 3 doesn't go into 8 well and then I realized 8 Tbsp is just 1/2 half cup and by that point I was so distracted trying to figure it out that I cut myself on the box for the butter. By the time I cleaned and bandaged up my bleeding finger, I decided surely it couldn't make that much difference and just lobbed off some butter. I think it did though 'cause our dough was a little sticky and the cut-out shapes had a really hard time coming up off the mat. I was about to snap. After 12 bears, I was done and just slammed some balls of dough down as I slid across the flour-filled floor. Teddy bears play with balls, right?
The cookies finally finished baking. I had hurriedly scoured the kitchen while they baked. I had patiently answered "No, dear, they aren't ready yet and I still have to make the icing" oh about 473 times. I pull out the last baking sheet of our sweet teddy bear cookies and unbelievably, I grab on end of the cookie sheet with my finger and thumb. I scream at the top of my lungs, "I am the BIGGEST IDIOT EVER!" So much for the good example. But I did have several moments of hysterical laughing as I ran my fingers under water. It was just all a little too much. So, maybe I taught her the old "you can either laugh or cry" adage. The good news is only my finger has the imprint of the edge of the cookie sheet on it. My thumb was spared so I can fix dinner tonight with just two band-aids on one hand instead of three.

Mama Said
P.S. The cookies were delicious and BFG had so much fun decorating. In fact, throughout the entire project she was singing a made-up song about zippa-de-do-dah she loves Jesus. Maybe I should be learning from her example.