Christmas Cookies

I had such big plans for Christmas activities this year.  Of course they didn't get done.  I mentioned before that I was making all of the cousins' Christmas presents.  Well, that took A LOT of time.  

I did get a chance to make 1 type of Christmas cookies with the boys.  

We got the boys some new shirts and the boys wouldn't let me take the sticker tag off the front.  They wanted to wear the sticker.  So annoying haha.

We never did get around to decorating them... or eating them haha.  I am hoping to decorate a few every once in a while... starting soon!

Chugga-Chugga Choo-Choo - Train Cookies

I decided that I would take step by step pictures of the cookies I made for the boys birthday party.  I quickly changed my mind.  

I started off doing 'ok' but adding that one more step of taking pictures just made the task almost unbearable haha.  I was in the zone and didn't want to be bothered (or completely forgot) to take pictures.  

Of course I made train cookies.  I started with outlining the main color of the train.

and then I stopped taking pictures.  Oops.  I know, it didn't last long.  I do have some random ones so I will leave them for you. 

After piping the outline of the cookie I filled the cookie with the red.  Then I moved on to the other colors on the train.  Most of the cookies were train engines.  I had 3 'special' trains.  I did 3 large engines,  3 passenger cars (pictured above), and 3 coal cars (2 pictures below).

I also made 2 different signs.

The white and black railroad crossing sign (above) and the yellow RR circle sign (never took a picture).

This is where I stopped taking pictures all together.  I didn't even get a good picture of all the cookies on the cookie tray.  OOPS!

This is the best shot I got, but instead of seeing the cookies you see the label.

I remembered that I didn't take a picture of the cookies and I was able to click one real quick before too many were taken.  Sadly this picture is missing the large engine.

Of course I had to get pictures of the birthday boys eating their train cookies.

M 

 G

Most of the kids that ate the cookies did a great job.  Mine on the other hand LOVE to eat all the icing off before actually biting the cookie.  Their cookie beards grew as they were enjoying their cookie.  

After taking the pictures off of my memory card I realized I never got a picture of the cookies so I grabbed the few that were left and threw them on a plate so you could get an idea of what they looked like.  

There were some really nice looking ones.  Of course I don't have pictures of those because they were the first tray I set out.  When they were eaten I started to replace them with the lesser ones.

I read that sometimes red, black, brown, and orange icing doesn't dry well.  I was so excited that I figured out how thin the icing should be the last time I made cookies.  I thought these would come out perfectly since my filling icing came out so great last time.  Again, some did... but others stayed tacky looking.  They look like they didn't completely dry (they were).  O'well, most of them were eaten anyway :)

Baby Girl Baptism Cookies

My girlfriends beautiful little girl Avery is being Baptized this Sunday.  She asked me if I could make some decorated sugar cookies for the event.  

Mommy and Babe Christmas Party

I had a Mommy and Babe Christmas party.  I had a lot planned for this party.  I knew that there was a great possibility of not doing any of it.  The oldest babes were mine.  (There were some older ones invited but they couldn't make it).  The youngest was 7 weeks (if I remember correctly).  So I knew that there would mostly be playing and eating.  I was right :)  But this is what was planned...

I purchased cute little snowmen cups and plates and Santa cups and plates for the 'older' kids.

On the kitchen table I had all of the desserts.  I made little snowmen cupcakes.  They were chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting and marshmallow snowmen made with edible marker.  

I had a plate of Christmas cookies.  Starting from left and going to right: Krinkle cookies (I just call them gingerbread men... but they are so much better), Ritz crackers with peanut butter sandwiched in between dunked in almond bark, Peanut Butter Blossoms (peanut butter sugar cookie with Hershey Kiss), Ghram Cracker with melted peanut butter and chocolate with white chocolate swirl, Chocolate Sandwich Dream (chocolate cookie with mint frosting), Ritz dunked in mint flavored chocolate with crushed candy cane.  

Behind the cookies were little favors for all the babes.  I got them little hand size cardboard Christmas books.  

I also had all of the hot chocolate mugs and accessories out on the dessert table.  I had a cup of candy canes to stir the hot cocoa and a bowl of snowmen face marshmallows.  The hot chocolate looked SO cute when it was made.  I filled the cup with the yummy chocolate drink and then swirled (so much) whipped cream on top and carefully dropped a few snowmen in.  Poor little guys were melting away.  

Here's a shot of the table all together.

I didn't take any other pictures at the party but there was a lot more going on.

I put all of the lunch food on the counter.  I had a plate of winter cheese (cheese cut with winter cookie cutters - mittens, hats, and snowflakes), a holly bowl of grapes, a snowman plate of cut apples and oranges, a santa plate with turkey and cheese slices, a santa plate with croissants and bread, a bowl of chicken salad, and a bowl of egg salad.  YUM!!!

After we indulged  in our lunch and desserts (which of course were picked at the entire get together) the kids completed their little craft.  I don't have much room in my little house.  I definitely don't have enough space for everyone to sit at a table together.  So I chose a craft that was special for the Mommies rather than the babes.  Honestly the babes are so young what would they care :) .  I pre-made salt dough ornaments for all of the babes.  I made the dough, cut out large circles, and placed the circle in a zip lock bag initialed with the babes letters.  I tried to make it easy enough for Mama to grab their babe smoosh their hand on the circle and be done.  When the ornaments were done I put them on the kitchen counter and made a little hole in each with a straw.

I also made sugar cookies with an easy butter frosting tinted in a bunch of different Christmas colors.  I knew it would be a long shot having any of the kids decorate their cookie or cookies, but I wanted to be prepared.  No one did decorate a cookie, but I look forward to doing this with the boys and Hubs some night this week.

Baby Cookies

When I make hubs cookies I always try to make the babes cookies. I don't really care for them to have the not so good for you cookies that we eat.

These baby cookies are made out of the iron fortified baby cereal that babes are suppose to eat. A lot of babes give up eating that cereal (so I've been told) when they start eating big people food and Mama's want to continue to get it in their babes some how and Mama's have boxes left over and don't know what to do with it...and this is how some do it. My babes DON'T have a problem eating the baby cereal. Actually they have a HUGE warm bowl every morning with cinnamon and raisins. Or I make it cold with cut up bananas. They LOVE their morning cereal.

Or if you have a sweet little girl you can make her precious little heart shaped cookies and serve one on a gorgeous pink plate.
But in my case, I make big 'ol dino cookies so I can hear the babes roar as they eat them.

Cookies

Sorry about the obnoxiously LARGE pictures lately!! I downloaded a free trial of a photo editing software and it has run out. It's either super small pictures now (which take forever to download) or super large pictures (that take seconds to download)...hmmm seems backwards.

I have been making the BEST oatmeal raisin cookies lately. Every time I'm going to make cookies I ask Jon if he wants chocolate chip or oatmeal raisin. Normally it's a no brainer he ALWAYS wants the chocolate chip. BUT not lately... now it's ALWAYS the oatmeal raisin. He has LOVED the new recipe I have been using to make these cookies.

This time I separated the dough in half. I put raisins in half and cranberries in the other half. I might do this EVERY time! The cranberry ones were SO good.

Vacation Bible School

This week the boys and I attended VBS. The theme this year was PandaMania. The church looked GREAT. They did a great job making the church look like a jungle where pandas and other wild animals would want to be.

I was one of the helpers in the nursery. Part of me was very excited that I was going to be helping out again for the first time in YEARS. The other part of me was dreading the week. VBS goes from 9:30-12:00. My babes nap (yes I know this is extraordinary) from anywhere between 9:00/10:00 - 12:00/1:00. I was so upset that I was going to be taking my babes best nap of the day away for 5 days (well really 7 because we had a busy weekend last weekend and they didn't nap).

After Tuesday I decided that there was NO way I could MAKE them miss their nap AGAIN. I asked my mom if she could stay with them Wednesday morning. They were SO happy to be home. They napped from 9:30-2:00 that day. I even had a chance to go get a hair cut before coming home - which was DESPERATELY needed! When I got home it was 1:30. My mom had the babes lunch in the oven getting everything ready for the cuties. After I fed them lunch the boys and I played HARD. We had SO much fun. This was the most fun I had all week! I really missed them during the week. Even though I was with them most days it felt like I didn't see them at all because I was holding and playing with other babies instead of them :( so sad!

This is a snap shot of the fun we had Wednesday evening.

Gunnar

Micaiah

The boys (more so Gunnar) LOVE hats! Gunnar pulls his bunny ears from Easter off the shelf at least once a week and asks me to put them on him. For about an hour they were going back and forth from their birthday hats, bunny ears, and winter hats.

Thursday I decided to take the boys to the nursery with me again. Yikes! My easy going care free babes were not happy. Any on looker would say otherwise, but Mama Bear knows her cubs and they were not themselves. They were very jealous on this day. I decided that I would let them stay home again on Friday. My mom felt bad for the boys and for me, so she did the nursery for me on Friday instead of me going. Shhhh, don't tell...it was WONDERFUL staying home with my babes!

Friday night was the closing ceremony for VBS. I wanted to take the babes so that they could watch all the kids sing on stage. They lasted for about 30 seconds and then they wanted down and wanted to run. We didn't mind at all. The multipurpose room was SO hot that we were happy to chase them around the nice cool hallways.

After the ceremony all of the kids and parents get to enjoy some refreshments. To help out the refreshment table I made these.

Fourth

My Aunt called us Sunday night to invite us to my cousins for a last minute 4th of July get together.

Of course I wanted to bring dessert with.

I made flag sugar cookies.

I made homemade chocolate cake & cupcakes with a creamcheese frosting and festive berries to top.

I made a blueberry crisp. Which I didn't take a picture of, because a crisp is a crisp. After having the crisp in the oven for the 25 minutes the recipe called for I felt that it needed to stay in there longer. I left it in, but I was very disappointed with how I thought it was going to come out. I tried a new recipe. Hubs yelled at me and said why would you mess with something that is already so good. He just doesn't get it :) (After having some at the party he said it was good, but he likes the original better.)

After looking at the crisp (which looked really good) I decided that I had to make a cherry crisp too...but with my normal crisp recipe and not the new one (which won't be used again). Live and learn :)

I had a bunch of cookies left over and gave them to hubs to take to work Tuesday morning. He sent me a picture with the tub of cookies with minimal cookies left saying, It's not even 10am and your cookies are almost gone. That made me happy :)

I will be posting about another cake soon. I have an order due Saturday morning. It's going to be wild :)

Luau Cookies

A couple of weekends ago we went to a 1st birthday party. The party had a luau theme. We had so much fun. The boys played in the baby pool, swung on swings, and ran all around the yard.

Mama and the boys getting in the car to go to the party.
I made cookies for the party. I was really happy with how the flowers came out but wasn't too pleased with the flip flops. The flowers were only two steps to get the icing done, where as the flip flops could have been as many as 4 or 5. I would have been happy with at least enough time to do 3. The first step being the main color. The second being the strap, and the third being the toe part. The fourth and fifth could have been just some extra detail. Oh well. They were just for fun.

The birthday boy's mama liked them so I was happy I brought them for her.

Yummy

I love to bake. I don't do it nearly as often as I would like to or nearly as good was I would like it to be....BUT, I love it!

When I get really into it my hubs yells at me because he is the one that eats it all :/ therefore, he is the one that .... well I think you get it ... hehe... :)

Here are some treats that I have made. There are some more but (we got a new computer and all the other ones are on the old computer...and I don't feel like turning that slow dinosaur on).

Mardi Gras Cookies (Chips, Salsa, and Guac)

Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies with Strawberry and Kiwi Salsa and Frosting with pineapple. I found this amazing recipe from this great blog. The Sweet Adventures of Sugar Belle

Sugar Cookies

I made these for a girl friends sons Communion. He asked his mom for cross sugar cookies. This is what he got.

My babes 1st birthday smash cakes.

Applesauce cake with no sugar frosting.

Baby Shower Cake

Obviously it was an under water theme. :)

White cake with strawberry filling.

Hubs birthday cake.

Chocolate and more Chocolate

Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting garnished with mini chocolate chips and mini marshmallows.

My mom's birthday cake.

White chocolate cake with banana and pudding filling.

Next time I have a few spare minutes I will turn on the dinosaur and get some more yummy pictures. ....

Speaking of dinosaurs, I made the cutest dino baby cookies the other day. Wish I took some pictures of those. I now have my camera out all the time even for my random cookies. Hey, you never know when you want to show yummy pictures. MMmmm!