The holidays are seriously my favorite time you guys. I know, I tell you this every year, but SERIOUSLY. Fall through like January 1st, you will most likely find me at my absolutely happiest. I mean don’t get me wrong — winter blues are real, BUT I love family time so much and during this period is when I get to be around them the most.
I also like to bake…I know, the words literally came out of my mouth. It’s fine. I may not be good at it, but I like to at least pretend that I am and by pretend, I mean — eat all the things my Mom actually bakes and take cute pictures of Blake helping. Basically, just the true meaning of what it means to be a “Baker." So I dragged my Mom into the kitchen a little early this year and made her help me whip up some of our favorites to show you and chat about some cute ways to let your little ones help this season when you’re baking away or all the time – you know, if you find yourself in the kitchen more than just during the holidays.
Let’s talk about how to get those littles involved in the whole process, because we know they’re going to be in there making a mess anyways! I wanted to make sure to highlight three ways that I let Blake be totally involved with all of this and ways that would work well, any time you’re in the kitchen cookin’ something up!
3 Ways to Involve Your Babies in Holiday Baking:
1. Grab a stool or high chair.
We use the OXO Sprout High Chair and it was perfect. We had the tray off for a majority of it and I would let her hold the bowl, mix, add in chocolate chips. Really, any part of it that wasn’t totally messy I let her do. We eventually added the tray back for the harder parts and then she just got to eat all the treats while I knocked out the parts she couldn’t be “involved” in. *Also the high chair is GOLD, seriously it’s incredible*
2. Give them their own products.
When we made the strawberries, I actually just gave Blake two strawberries, a little bit of chocolate in one of the small OXO bowls we have and then a small spoon so that she could make her own chocolate covered strawberries. She ate most of them, but thought it was the greatest thing ever because she was helping and doing what Mama was and the joy on her face just made me the happiest.
3. Buttons — let them push all the buttons. There’s just something about kids and button pushing, isn’t it funny? HA! I let Blake help me turn the oven on (obviously carefully), she set the timer, pushed the microwave buttons, all the buttons. She also helped me turn the tunes on because what’s a baking party without some tunes?!
For kid-friendly recipes and more photos, head over to Positively Oakes(Opens in a new window).