Little Mary

Growing up, I had a second family. When I was about a year and a half old I moved to a small town in New Hampshire called Merrimack. I haven't lived there for almost 14 years now but I still consider it to be where I grew up, and a large part of me still thinks of it as home. There was a family there who my family was close with, and I've known them all my memory. Two of their kids are my age... Matt is about 6 months older then me and as kids we always competed for who was the tallest (these days I think he has a good 6 inches on me at least). He was my first kiss (we were about 3 or 4) and we used to play tag with each other, except when we caught the other we would kiss. This is a fact we earnestly denied as we got older, and it's also a fact that our older siblings never let us forget. "Little Mary" was the other, about a year younger than me, and her and I were best friends. My younger brother Tommy had a major crush on her for a long time and as a little kid he used to sing "I love Mary Kahler" all he time. My family referred to her as "Little Mary" for years because I have an older sister named Merry.

Here we are, that's me in the middle:

And here is Mary with my brother Tommy!

I came across those pictures recently and had to share! But on to cookies. Little Mary is little no longer, and while we haven't seen each other in many years (what with living on opposite sides of the country) I still keep in touch with her and all of my second family. Well Mary recently had  her first baby and I wanted to do something for her. I talked to her Mom and sister, and sent some surprise cookies for her baby shower whose theme was pink and black damask:

These first ones are my favorites, but they were pretty intricate. This is my first time doing damask and I think they came out pretty good!

 

I also tried a simpler pattern

And threw in some baby carriages as well.

And just because I worked hard on these and they are my 

favorites... one more picture of these damask cookies!

I'm definitely going to have to play around with this pattern some more. 

And I'm happy to announce that Elizabeth Keila was born on November 17th, 2011 (which is a wonderful birthday... Matthew's is the next day!) and she is healthy and beautiful!

On another note, I'm feeling adventurous and I'm in the mood to start making cookies again... except I can't decide what theme to go with! Any suggestions?