Happy Valentine's Day!

Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies

I spent most of the week at Mommy's, helping with the children while J-Daddy was away on a trip. As I've said before, I usually cannot manage blogging and baby sitting at the same time. I normally don't even take my computer with me. I need to keep focused on the busy little people in front of me. So here is just a peek at our week.

The first morning I woke up at their house, there were a few snow flakes falling. Now, if you do not live in the deep South, you don't understand what a few flakes of snow do to us. This amount of snow was enough to call off evening activities at schools and churches. And it certainly was a reason for Mommy to make hot chocolate and bake cookies as a snowy day treat.

There was a short clip on the local news this week of an elementary school here that let the kids go outside to see the snowflakes falling. Big Sister said her high school English teacher stopped class long enough for the students to all go look out the windows for a few minutes. Yes. Snow causes Southerns to go a little crazy.

One thing on the Mimi to-do list this week was to help Little Sister make a Valentine box for her preschool party. I remember making boxes like this when I was in school. So I covered a shoe box in red paper and gave Little Sister an assortment of stickers and paper doilies and let her decorate it. She made "patter-rines" (patterns) of hearts and lips. She stopped when she ran out of stickers.

It's a good thing I did not know that now Valentine boxes have become a big deal now. (Check out "Valentine boxes" on Pineterest.)  Call me old fashioned, but I think the 5-year-old should be the designer/maker of the box. Which means it's going to be pretty simple. At least at age 5, she wasn't concerned that her box wasn't as fancy as some of the others.

We didn't use the cute paper doilies that I had purchased for the Valentine box project, but they made a perfect addition to the cookies bags. Just right to share with friends.

Here is the recipe that Mommy used for her snowy day cookies.

MILK CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

11-1/2 ounces milk chocolate chips
1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/4 cups unsifted flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped pecans (optional)
sea salt

Heat oven to 375ºF.
Stir flour with baking soda and salt; set aside.
In large mixing bowl, mix butter with sugar and brown sugar at medium speed until creamy and lightened in color.
Add vanilla and eggs, one at a time. Mix on low speed until mixed completely.
Gradually blend dry mixture into creamed mixture. Stir in chocolate chips (and nuts, if using.)
Drop by tablespoon onto ungreased cookie sheets.
Sprinkle tops lightly with sea salt.
Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown.

 My little Valentines

Happy Valentine’s Day!