a wedding and a missed baby shower

Posts have been a little slow since last week... but with good reason!

That's my baby brother and his super adorable new wife! Since my husband wasn't able to get the time off work, my sister and I drove out together with our sons, and it was so nice to be able to be there! 

Here Matthew and I are freezing our butts off, but it was worth it! The reception out here in Washington isn't for a few weeks still, which is good because I'm making the wedding cake and cookies for the reception... and I haven't 100% planned it out yet. I should get on that.

While I was gone there was a baby shower for a friend I've known since high school! I hated to miss it, and really wanted to do something for it. Then I saw the adorable theme: cookies & milk. Um....PERFECT? I ended up making some little milk bottles with straws, and I'm sorry I didn't get any pictures of them because I was in such a rush to get them done and pack for my trip at the same time! Luckily Merilee got a shot of them for me, and check out the rest of the cute baby shower here!

Ok can I just say... where do I get one of these cake plates for myself!? 

Anyway that's my quick update, it has been a very busy week and a half, but hopefully life will be calming down again soon. I've got some more cookies and another great recipe to share with you, hopefully before the week is out!

Curious George third birthday party

I'm excited to show you guys these cookies because a lot of time and effort went into them! Why? Well, let me introduce you to someone:

This is our dog Violet, also known as Facey (Facey is her nickname, along with a hundred other names. She's deaf, so we can call her whatever we want!). Don't be fooled by that sweet face... this picture does not accurately depict her personality... I think this one is a little more accurate:

If it's taking you a second to figure out what you are looking at... that's my dog, sleeping on her own head. She's a bit of a weirdo.

So last week I made 3 dozen Curious George cookies for a birthday party on Friday. I had finished everything on Wednesday, figuring that Thursday night would be a nice laid back evening! The cookies were ready to go, sitting on my dining room table. Thursday afternoon I come home to find my sweet little Facey has done another one of her escape artist tricks and unlocked her dog kennel... that we also latch shut with on of her dog leashes! This girl is insane! Well I'm sure you all know where this is going, she jumped up on the dining room table and ate all of the cookies (not to mention our garbage and the rest of her dog food that was in the house... uuurrggg that DOG!)! I'm not sure I've ever been that mad at her ever! And trust me, that is saying something. That night she was in what we called a "sugar coma".

Thanks to the Face (yes we really do call her Facey and the Face all the time) I was up all Thursday night redoing everything. I think I got about 3 hours of sleep that night! It's a good thing I love you Kerri, and don't feel bad - I was really happy to be able to do these for Jack's birthday! 

So here are my hard earned pictures. Of course I didn't take pictures of the originals... because apparently I'm not that smart. Here are my hastily done birthday cookies, although hopefully they don't look hastily done...

Happy 3rd Birthday Jack!

Matthew really really struggled with the fact that I was making Curious George cookies and he wasn't getting to eat any of them. I didn't feel too bad though seeing as he was invited to the birthday party and got to eat one anyway!

Yellow hats, of course!

Jack seemed to like them, so it was worth it! Afterward it occurred to me that some yellow ties with black spots would have been a good addition as well. Maybe next time! Although I'm not sure I'm in any real rush to do another set of these cookies! They were fun though, I mean... who doesn't like Curious George?

st. patrick's day... a little late this time

Ok, so I'm a little late... to be fair, I had these pictures ready on time! I just didn't have time to write this post because... well as my mom said, I was "putting out fires". I came home yesterday from work to a minor major disaster... but you'll hear all about that on Monday's post! 

In the meantime...

I thought it would be fun to do some gold coins for St. Patrick's Day! My husband so lovingly pointed out that there was a coin with a dollar sign on it... and American dollar sign (if you look carefully you can see it peeking out in the above picture). So... not exactly Irish. What do I know. I'm German, not Irish! Oh well.

Did you wear green? I wore aqua, it was the closest thing I had to green. No one would dare pinch me anyway, so I figured I was safe! I'm sort of new to doing even the most remote amount of celebrating on this holiday, so for me I think that was pretty good! But St. Patrick's day is over now. I'm excited for what I've got to show you guys on Monday, and to tell you about my very loooong day last Thursday. 

Happy weekend everyone!

spring birds

I'm getting a little desperate for spring to come!

When the weather is nice {enough} Matthew and I take walks outside, and he's always trying to find the birds he hears chirping from the trees. I love listening to him say "tweet tweet!"

I'm getting a bit anxious for the cold rain to go away, and I thought some cute little spring birds would be just what I needed!

I'm not sure these came out as cute as I envisioned in my head, but at least I got my small dose of spring....

Which is your favorite?

appletinis

These martini glasses are being sent off for a birthday in California...

Happy Birthday Becky!

I haven't had much luck with getting a good apple flavor into cookies or icing, so for the rimming sugar on the martini glasses I used actual apple martini rimming sugar. You get a nice strong sour apple flavor along the top! (ok, so I may have eaten one of them...)

The martini glasses needed a little something extra (I didn't want to do olives or anything since apple martinis don't typically have anything like that in them), so I made some apple slices!

Cute, no?

pineapple upside down cake

Pineapple upside down cake is possibly one of my favorite desserts... my mom has been making it for as long as I can remember. This recipe actually comes from my Grandmama (that is her depression ware glass plate in the picture), and has been tweaked just a little with each generation. 

__________________________________________

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

1 can pineapple rings, drained (reserve juice)

maraschino cherries

1/4-1/2 cup butter

brown sugar

1 box yellow cake mix (or vanilla)

1. Mix cake according to directions, but substitute water for pineapple juice. If there isn't enough pineapple juice, substitute remaining water with milk.

2. While oven preheats (heat according to cake mix), put 1/4 - 1/2 cup butter in cake pan and place in oven to melt.

*Amount of butter used is based on how rich you want your cake to be. Obviously more butter makes it tastier (and this is how my Grandmama does it) but some of us like a little less fat! 

** If you don't have a pan that will fit a whole cake mix, divide between two pans.

3. When butter is melted, swirl to coat sides of pan. Sprinkle brown sugar over melted butter... there is no amount because it's really a personal preference. I prefer more, but sprinkle enough to get a good layer. If needed, use the back of a spoon to smooth it into a fairly even layer.

4. Decorate with pineapple rings and cherries, if you choose to cut your cherries in half (I do) make sure to place the cherries upside down so that when you invert the cake they will have the rounded side up!

5. Pour cake batter into pan and bake according to box. 

6. When cake is done, cool for 5 minutes before inverting onto plate. If necessary use a knife to level cake before inverting.

__________________________________________

Steps 2 through 4 are shown here. Personally I'm one of those people who likes to have a visual of what exactly I'm supposed to do!

I'm actually not the big of a fan of cherries! That mini cake was more for me than anyone else.

Doesn't that just look so good? There's something about the way this cake looks... you just know it's going to be tasty! For anyone out there who's never tried this, it's an absolute must. And for anyone out there who's never made this because it seems difficult - you could not be more wrong! 

But then again, you can never really go wrong with one of my Grandmama's recipes.

shamrocks, a little early

I didn't have any particular cookie plans today, but Matthew (my 2 year old) came to me this morning and said, "nummy cookie please?"

...how can I say no to that face?

So we made (well I made, and he ate) some early St. Patrick's Day cookies. St. Patrick's Day isn't until next week but we had fun, and Matthew got to learn the art of dipping cookies in milk!

Is it just me, or is St. Patrick's Day one of those holidays that are kind of forgotten until you have kids to enjoy them with? 
  

More St Patrick's Day cookies to come soon!

mod monkey birthday party

My adorable nephew Charlie is turning 1! 

 These cookies are headed off to D.C. for his monkey birthday party...

wish I could be there!

Hopefully they arrive ok, I don't normally ship cookies and have done it both successfully and unsuccessfully! In any case he's turning one, so I think he'll be happy either way.

Happy Birthday Charlie!