Minnie Bows

 I just had to do a quick post to share what I got for Mother's Day from my 5 year old, Matthew. Or as I sometimes refer to him on here "Big M" ("Little M" being my 2 year old, Miles). For those of you who don't know him, Matthew loves to make everything out of paper. And I do mean everything. Well for Mother's Day he was absolutely positive that what would make me really happy was a Minnie Mouse bow cookie cutter. So what did he do? He made it for me. Out of paper.

He's such a sweet heart! That's the card he made me complete with Minnie bow "cutter" on the left, and a "cutter" for the polka dots, on the right. He was so excited and so proud of his gift that of course I didn't have the heart to tell him that's not how it worked. So at night after he went to bed I hand cut a few bows and decorated them, leaving one for him to do. 

 I love that he loves making cookies with me, and I love that he tried so hard to think of something I would enjoy. Another bonus is that we got to eat the results, which happens so seldom in this house!

I hope everyone else's Mother's Day was great!

catching up

Life is busy - as always - so I've been neglecting this site. Although if you follow me on Instagram you'll know I haven't stopped baking! But I am way behind on pictures. Some of these will look familiar to those who do follow my Instagram, but not everything. Since this is a picture heavy post just click on the link at the bottom to see all of the pictures.  Ok no more talking, here is a brief view of some of  what I've been up to over the last 3 months or so (I'm saving a couple of my absolute favorites for posts of their own).

an early Valentine's Day party

 

Matthew has been begging to decorate cookies, so on Monday we invited a few friends over and had an early Valentine's Day cookie decorating party!

  

The kids had so much fun - we had icing and sprinkles to decorate with, and I also iced a few in advance so that the kids could use my food markers to draw pictures.

But of course my child was writing things on all of his cookies, he is so proud to be learning to spell! Here is his "Mommy Daddy Miles Matthew" cookie (complete with cheesy grin)...

There was lots of taste testing going on...

 

But the kids got the hang of it pretty quick, and they did such a good job!

 

And this little lady can certainly hold her own with the boys 

(which is fortunate, because just look at that face)!

 Love the cheesy grins!

The cookies turned out great, if a little over done in some cases.

 

 Wait, I think that one deserves a closeup...

According to Charlie, "Matthew told me that my cookie looks incredible!" 

Seriously, we had a lot of fun. Matthew absolutely loved it and keeps asking to do it again! Which we will, when I'm ready to combat that mess again.

And now for me to start on my own Valentine's cookies...

a pirate birthday

New Year's Eve is coming... and in this house that pretty much means only one thing: little m is having a birthday!  While planning out what kind of cake to make for the big 1, I realized I never put up pictures from big M's birthday. I can't post about Miles before I get to Matthew, so here's a quick look at the cake and cookie topper I made for this adorable face....

So cute, I can hardly stand it.

He specially wanted a pirate party this year... which amounted to a pirate cake and making everyone wear eye patches. As it was mostly grownups at his party, it was pretty entertaining! 

I knew I didn't have time to make a bunch of cookies so instead I went for one big one. It has two sticks attached to it that are stuck in the cake for support.

In case you couldn't tell, he was pretty pleased with his cake!

I've got another party to plan so no lengthy explanations here... just a cookie stuck on top of a cake. And Matthew couldn't have been more excited... Easiest. Cake. Ever. Clearly I didn't even bother to make the frosting neat... I figure ocean waves are choppy, and Matthew is 4. We're good.

 

 Now on to the little one...

 

I'm baaaack!

Life keeps changing, but it looks like I'm going to finally - really - be back to making cookies.

Updates soon...

but I'm working on some big changes!

{dragonflies and dancing fairies were for my sister

Merry's fairy party... it's as awesome at it sounds}



a random assortment of cookies

Life gets busy and I don't always get around to posting everything I want to post. So I was going through my phone trying to clear out some space when I came across these photos... lots of cookies I've never posted here. These are by no means everything, but I thought it would be a good way to catch up a bit. So here is a random assortment of never before posted cookies...

{monster eyeballs, for Halloween, if you can't tell}

the very hungry caterpillar

This is probably my most favorite set of cookies that I have ever done.

I have tentatively started taking cookie orders again... one here or there, but when it rains it pours. When I say yes to one person, suddenly everyone wants cookies! Well I had taken on 4 cookie orders all at once when I got the request for a set of Very Hungry Caterpillar cookies. My initial reaction was to say no because I just don't have a lot of extra time right now! But it sounded so fun. So I went to Aaron... it always drives him a little crazy when I take on too many cookie orders because I get consumed and so does our home! I was sure he'd talk me out of it. However, as soon as he heard what they were his reaction was "that would be so awesome!" So... I agreed to do them. Which in reality I wanted to do anyway.

I wasn't given specifics aside from the theme being this book, but i decided if I was going to do it - then I was going to do it right! So every piece had to be hand cut and hand painted. I'm not complaining though, it was fun!

I did my best to stick with Eric Carle's illustrations... but watercolor is a

hard thing to dublicate on a cookie! How did I do?

A few of my favorites....

Afterwards Aaron informed me that there is a cookie cutter set of these for sale. Of this I was not aware... if I do these again, I am definitely getting that set.