Sweet Emery loves to wake up before the sun… I’m talking like 5am-6am most days. She is eager to start her day, talking a mile a minute and already bounding around the house. This preggo mama doesn’t quite share her enthusiasm at the 5am hour, so we had to come up with something!

As she is approaching 3 years old, her interest in open ended creative activities has really grown. The open ended part is key for me as it allows children to express themselves through art (vs coloring sheets where you’re supposed to color in the lines, or when there is a very specific desired end product) so that she can create how she sees fit, with no expectations of final outcome. It focuses on the process, rather than the product. For this particular morning, “cookie decorating” was a big hit!

I used all those Amazon boxes sitting in the garage and cut out round cookie shapes. Then I went through our craft cabinets and found the following:

Felt sticker hearts
Jewel stickers
Foam shape stickers
Glitter (only poured the amount I was willing to clean up)!
Sequins of all shapes
Tissue paper squares
Buttons
Different size poms
Beads
Little colored wooden sticks

and Elmer’s clear glue.

I left this on the table during the day and she came back to it several times to add more to her cookies and pretend to serve them. Now that they are dry, we might use them in a sensory bin or let little sis take a look (with supervision of course)!