Valentine's Goodies

For about as long as I can remember, my mom would make us heart shaped cookies for Valentines day every year. We also always had candy in our cute homemade heart shaped containers. While we aren't jumping on the candy train quite yet, I do want to start some fun traditions with them, and festive cookies are perfect. We used my mom's sour cream sugar cookie recipe, while I'll share below, and a butter cream cookie icing. While I decorated, the ate cookies and icing. Pretty much how you'd expect it to go with two almost two year olds. 

Even with their counter productive snacking, we still wound up with a few fully decorated cookies.

In addition to baking, I also wanted the kids to make some valentines to send to a few of their friends and cousins. We bought a package of cards from the dollar spot at Target along with some valentines stickers, and we got to work.

This was a lot of fun for them, and super easy. We took two afternoons, one for coloring and one for stickers. We included some stickers and heart confetti in the cards along with a Valentine's message. I love that they aren't anything fancy and that the kids got to spend time making them.

Their cards are all ready to go, along with some cookies for our favorite ladies at work.

While Rob and I don't really celebrate Valentine's Day, I'm excited to get to celebrate it with the kids. We are eating heart shaped everything this week. Cookies, sandwiches, french toast, donuts. If I can cut it into a heart, I will.  I hope everyone has a great Valentine's Day with the loves!

Sour Cream Sugar Cookies

1 cup butter (room temperature)

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

2 1/2 to 3 cups flour

1. Cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs.

2. Add remaining ingredients, and mix until combined.

3. Chill for at least 30 minutes. 

4. Pat/roll dough on a heavily floured surface. Cut with cookie cutter or shape gently.

5. Bake at 375* for 8 minutes.

6. Cool and ice with butter cream icing.

Notes : These cookies are delicious, but they are difficult to work with. They are great for basic cookie shapes such as hearts, stars or circles. They don't work well for intricate shapes or cutters. The dough is very sticky, even when cooled, so you will need quite a bit of flour for rolling them out. I used this icing recipe, but any butter cream recipe will do.

Happy Baking!