Homemade Halloween Cookies

Today at church, Autumn was really good and so was my class, which always makes for a nice Sunday. After church, we came home & had lunch w/ Mom & Nick. Autumn played, we watched football, I took a little nap, and then Mom went home b/c Dad was getting off of work. Since it was Sunday, we didn’t go out trick-or-treating, plus we had gotten a bunch of candy at the trunk-or-treat yesterday. So, we decided to make sugar cookies. Autumn wanted to wear her costume, which I thought was festive for making Halloween sugar cookies.

Her one eye looks funny in this picture, but this is the only picture I could get of her helping to cut out the dough. I LOVE the sugar cookie recipe we used (which I got from Kristin), b/c you don’t have to refrigerate it and it’s so easy. I don’t plan far enough ahead to make the dough and give it enough time to chill. I am a fly by the seat of my pants type of person so this dough is great for me.

NEVER FAIL SUGAR COOKIES

1 c. Margarine
1 c. Sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
3 1/2 c. Flour
3 tsp. baking powder

Cream together margarine and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. Stir in flour and baking powder. No need to chill the dough. Roll dough out to 1/4" thick and cut with cookie cutters. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Cookies will NOT look browned. Let cool, frost (if desired), and ENJOY!! :)

In between the door bell ringing, we would decorate our cookies. All the Halloween candy I bought was gone after the trunk-or-treat yesterday, and I wasn’t even planning on handing out candy today. I was just going to leave the porch light off and ignore the door bell when kids would come trick-or-treating. But, Autumn always wanted to see who was at the door and since I didn’t have any candy, we just gave away hers. She didn’t mind at all and was more than happy to share her candy. Of course I had to take out the good candy (chocolate) to save for ourselves. This is probably the first & only year Autumn will be OK w/ handing out her own candy. I thought it was very sweet of her to want to share.
(And she hasn’t asked at all in the days since where her candy is.)

Here are some of Autumn’s decorated cookies. She put too much on a few of them so I had to tell her to be careful. So after every single cookie she decorated she would ask me, “That too much, Mama?” Usually I am a control freak and would have insisted on helping her decorate them so they would look pretty. But, thanks to the inspiration I received from watching Dad let Autumn draw whatever she wanted on her pumpkin, I relinquished some of my OCD and just let Autumn decorate the cookies however she wanted.
Just a small green patch on the right side of the bat? No problem.
Mixing red & blue sprinkles on the pumpkin? Go right ahead.

We had a blast making our cookies and even more fun when we filled up a few paper plates w/ our creations and took them around to the neighbors. I think this was our best Halloween yet b/c Autumn is old enough to grasp the concept of what Halloween is and we had a great time sharing our cookies & candy w/ others. I hope all y’all had a HAPPY HALLOWEEN as well!