Independence Day Cookies!!

As you know the patriotic season is upon us!  I think these have been some of my favorite cookies to do to date!

I really can't wait for the weekend!

There will be:

Fireworks!

And:

 Bottle Rockets!  Lighting up the night sky!  Chillin' with the:

Twinkling stars!

And I think these are my favorite:

Independence Day quilt blocks!  This design is inspired by my mom.  She's a quilter.  Like for serious.  She's kind of a big deal.  (I think so anyway)  :)  She creates civil war reproduction fabrics and quilts.  She even has her own fabric line(s).   She even named one of them after my baby girl Sophie.  Because that's what grandmas do.  :)  You can find her patterns and fabrics in Hancock's of Paducah stores.  So in our family that means she's famous.

Hope everyone has a super 4th of July weekend!

Belated Father's Day Cookies

I couldn't post pics of these till my father got them.  Which was a week after fathers day.

Because I knew I was going to see him and thought it would be nice to actually see his reaction when he got them.

  He doesn't mind that they're late.

He's cool like that.

Unamused Faces All Around Me...

Ok.  So my husband is part of this internet car group.  (Yes, I married the computer nerd...).
Anyway, once a year they get together in Maryland on some guys land and have a camp out.  This is no small ordeal.  About 80 some odd people show up to this shin dig every year.

Well, for some reason, my husband is known as "The General of the Unamused Army".  (This is ALL a much more complicated and lengthy story.  And it would no doubt bore you so I'm skipping it.  Just nod your head and follow along with me here for sanity time sake.)  He's known for this mostly because he has been known to randomly send out these stickers:

Really just hang in here with me.....

I am sure that this little face has some deeply important meaning to all these guys... I dunno.  I just know that these stickers are all over my house sometimes.

To cut to the chase.  He asked me to make like 4 dozen of these little babies into cookies.

Sounded like an excuse to use my new edible image system.  :)

So they're all ready to get on a plane in the morning.  I will miss my hubby while he's gone this weekend.  But I hope he has a great time and enjoys his much needed weekend to relax and just have fun.  :)

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Cookie Cutter Give-a-way #2!!

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Ok Day 2 of the amazing cookie cutter give-a-way over at Glorious Treats!

 

Yay!!

And today she is giving away 4 cookie cutters from Copper Gifts!

You can win a cupcake, a snowflake, a tea cup, and a bouquet cutter

Can I tell you how much I LOVE Copper Gifts?  They have everything.  And copper cutters are just the bees knees.  I mean they look oh so pretty on their own, but yet they're functional!  They make beautiful cookies!!

FYI:  If a certain someone is reading (Hint hint MOM) wants to just randomly give me a gift card to Copper Gifts I will be very thankful.  I will bake you cookies with them.  :)

Just sayin'

Cookie Cutter Give-a-way!

 Obsessed with cookie cutters??  I know I am.  :)

Lookin' to get some?.....For freeeeeeee????

Hop on over to Glorious Treats!  She is holding a cookie cutter give-a-way!!  Huzzah!! Foose cookie cutters to be exact.

I am a serious fan of this blog people.  I always have been.  I mean look at her beautiful creations...

I hear rumors that there will be even more cutter give-a-ways this week.  So go check it out.  Bookmark it.  Subscribe.  Whatever.  Do it.  :)

 

Happy Father's Day

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Some Father's Day Quotes (and of course some pics)

A father carries pictures where his money used to be.  ~Author Unknown

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around.  But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.  ~Mark Twain, "Old Times on the Mississippi" Atlantic Monthly, 1874

 Old as she was, she still missed her daddy sometimes.  ~Gloria Naylor

 
Making the decision to have a child is momentous.  It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.  ~Elizabeth Stone

I don't care how poor a man is; if he has family, he's rich.  ~M*A*S*H, Colonel Potter

Dad, your guiding hand on my shoulder will remain with me forever.  ~Author Unknown

Spread the diaper in the position of the diamond with you at bat.  Then fold second base down to home and set the baby on the pitcher's mound.  Put first base and third together, bring up home plate and pin the three together.  Of course, in case of rain, you gotta call the game and start all over again.  ~Jimmy Piersal, on how to diaper a baby, 1968 

"The father of a daughter is nothing but a high-class hostage. A father turns a stony face to his sons, berates them, shakes his antlers, paws the ground, snorts, runs them off into the underbrush, but when his daughter puts her arm over his shoulder and says, 'Daddy, I need to ask you something,' he is a pat of butter in a hot frying pan." -- Garrison Keillor 

"My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it." -- Clarence Budington Kelland

"A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty." -- Unknown

Any man can be a father. It takes someone special to be a dad. ~ Anonymous

A father is a man who expects his children to be as good as he meant to be. ~ Carol Coats

  
 


Never raise your hand to your kids.  It leaves your groin unprotected.  ~Red Buttons






Haha!!  I just thought that last one was too funny!  

Happy Father's Day all!

** To my Dad.  Who always says, "God may not give you want you want.  But He gives you what you need."  (When asked about raising 3 girls)    :)    We love you Daddy **


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CAKE!

*


LET THERE BE CAKE!!

Ok so this is the end result of what was SUPPOSED to be a Father's Day cake

Although...as you can see...it isn't very manly is it?

No... no not really....

Ok so this is the deal.  He acted like he didn't want me to do anything at all for Father's Day.  And even after I convinced him that he needed to give me a valid excuse to bake, the only direction he would give me was no fondant....*sigh*

SO I sketched out like a billion ideas....not a lot of manly things can be done with JUST buttercream without looking like it came from the grocery store.  So....after a couple of failed attempts at a MAN design... I just gave up.  I have a baby that needs attention and a house to clean and dinner to cook.  So I just did whatever I wanted.  :)

Oh well... I'm sure it will taste good just the same.  Man cake or not.  :)

Karen's Cookies

Hey guess what?!

Remember these?:

Well I made a tutorial for them for the cookie forum.  And now that tutorial is on a REAL WEBSITE (yeah I know...LOOK LOOK!).  Karen's Cookies asked my permission to use my tutorial on their site and OF COURSE I said YES!  It's a really great website.  There are all kinds of tips, tricks, and videos for cookie decorating....recipes... you name it.

And while your there you can do a little shopping.  They have some great stuff.  I personally have ordered from them and I gotta tell you I don't think I've ever been so pleased with a supply company.  My celo baggies and my cookie cutters came neatly wrapped in beautiful tissue paper with a hand written thank you and a little bag of heart shaped confetti sprinkles.  (Isn't that nice?)  Everything was in great shape and they are SUPER fast.  I got my order within days.

On top of that, they are super sweet people.  They gladly host and run the cookie forum for all of us over at Cookiers R Us and they are always so supportive and kind.

So I just wanted to say thank you Karen and Mike.  I am honored.  :)

Summertime

Summertime,
And the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin'
And the cotton is high

Oh, Your daddy's rich
And your mamma's good lookin'
So hush little baby
Don't you cry

One of these mornings
You're going to rise up singing
Then you'll spread your wings
And you'll take to the sky

But until that morning
There's a'nothing can harm you
With your daddy and mammy standing by

Summertime,
And the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin'
And the cotton is high

Your daddy's rich
And your mamma's good lookin'
So hush little baby
Don't you cry

I have had that song stuck in my head for DAYS!!  Watermelon and ants.  Kinda sloppy.  Not my best work.  But hey, good enough for my hungry little mob on a random Saturday in the hot Texas sun. 

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend! :)

Posting Comments

quick little post.

I have recieved some wonderful e-mails from readers (and a few phone calls from relatives) giving me some lovely compliments (Thank you! :) ) But all of them end the same way....I would have commented on your blog, but it won't let me post a comment.  This has been bothering me.  I LOVE COMMENTS!  I have been yearning for lovely comments!!  ( I love the e-mails too tho ).

So I immediately had my genius tech-savvy husband check it out.  This had to be fixed!  Well, while he fixed a lot of other little things that were bothering me...like the date stamp (all it would show was the time of my post but not the day or month?  Who cares if I posted at 2:14 am?? Where's the DATE? ),  there isn't anything to fix as far as the comments go.  Apparently the comments work just fine (I tested it to make sure).

I think (and PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong) that the issue seems to be that there isn't really a place to put the comment?  That's my fault.  It has to do with the way I've formatted my blog home page.  BUT it's easy to comment: I will share the secret.

When your scrolling down the home page.....or on reader.... it just goes from one post to the next with no comment boxes.  I like it this way.  It's clean and you don't have to keep jumping from one page to the other just to read a story.  I like clean.  I like easy.

SO to post a comment you have to click the title of the actual post you want to comment on...
Let's use for example the Reflective Bunny post.  It's short.  And hey let's face it....she's so darn cute how could you not comment?  So click on the gray title of the post...

And voila!  A comment box!!  Yay!

And now you can type in your comment:

So there ya go!

Now if there is some other issue with the comments that I just can't seem to see for some reason PLEASE e-mail me and let me know.  Otherwise feel free to comment away!!  (Squee!!)

Hope this helps.

**UPDATE!**

I got word that there seemed to be in issue with the word verification.  Perhaps it had to do with space or something.  So now the comment box is in a pop up window.  Hopefully this will resolve that problem.  But if it doesn't let me know.  So to comment use the same steps as directed above.  But on the second page you won't see an embedded comment box.  You will see a little blue link that says leave a comment.  Then that will bring up the comment box in a pop up window.  So make sure your pop ups are turned on for this site.  :)  I wont spam ya.  Promise.  :)

The Poop Story

Ah my darling  little angel. Adorable perfect little ray of love and sunshine...

Yes

But let's face it folks.  Little girls (even perfect ones) Poop.

There I said it.  The secret is out.  (Just in case you were in denial)

So night before last my husband and I are going through the usual evening routine.  Sitting down to a family dinner together.  Sophie throwing food off the tray to the dog below her.  The dog snarfing it up getting even fatter than she is....A sure sign that dinner is over.

So it's off to take a bath.  She loves bath time.  It's her favorite (Well almost.  She enjoys the park a lot more).  David puts her in the bath and I start cleaning the table off.  When suddenly I hear "ALI!  POOOOOP!!"  I run to the bathroom to find that Sophie has pooped in the tub.  David had immediately removed her from the bath and she was sitting on the floor screaming because he wouldn't let her back in to play in the water.  So I snatched her up and took her to "Mommy and Daddy's tub" and proceeded to place her in it and turn on the faucet.  She's delighted and happy once more and crouches down to play with the running water.

*PLOP*

She poops again! So Mommy has to take her crying child out of the fun bathtub once again.

I didn't have too many places to take her.  She had a poopy bottom.  Dave was indisposed trying to clean up the last poopy mess.  She was crying and flailing to be set free.  If I put her down on the carpet she will either run back into the bathroom, where my husband now had the Clorox disinfecting the tub, or she would sit on something with her poopy bottom.

So I took her out to the back porch.  I figured she's still young enough that naked in semi public isn't a crime.  And she loves being outside so that would buy me enough time to run and get a wipe for her bottom.  So she stopped crying and crouched on the floor to play with the toy that was already out there from a previous outdoor adventure.  And then.....

*sigh*

She pooped on the porch.

Ok at this point bath time just isn't going to happen.  So I wiped her bottom with the wipe I managed to grab before she soiled the patio.  And took her in her room and slapped a diaper on her.  And you know what?  She didn't poop at all after that.  It's like she was waiting to be diaper free to get it all out.  So now there is poop in 3 of the 7 areas of our apartment.

And to top it off.  While I was putting pajamas on her, David went to clean up the poop from the porch.  When he got out there I heard him cry "ALI!  DID YOU CLEAN UP THE POOP OFF THE PATIO?"  Uh No.  When did I have time to do that??

Later he tells me that he went outside and there was no poop.  Just a brown streak on the pavement and a happy dog.  He swears the dog burped.

Dogs eat poop.  Great.

Last night we were very careful to give her ample time after dinner to poop in her diaper before bath time.

Being a mom never gets old. :)

What Is That BUG?

Ok this is kind of off the usual topic of conversation that I usually write about on here...but really.  It's just too odd not to share...

Yesterday was a beautiful Texas day.  Mid 80's.  Sun shining.

So I went outside to clean the poop off the porch. 

I'll write about that next.....long story...ok well not really a LONG story...but another story.

Anyway I was out there with a scrub brush, soap and water.  When I looked up and saw THIS!

Yeah,  creepy crawly.  Looks like a bunch of crumpled leaves.  But upon closer inspection....see the little caterpillar poking out of the end there?  Yeah.

At first I thought it was a cocoon and I was about to witness a butterfly emerging....but it just kinda crawled along dragging the cocoon behind it.  And I always thought that cocoons were attatched to something.  I've never heard of a traveling cocoon.  I looked around our porch some more and there were quite a few of them just creeping about.  So I called the hubby outside.  He figured that they might be kind of like hermit crabs and they live out of them and carry their homes around.  Well who ever heard of hermit caterpillars I ask you?!  So we decided to figure out what exactly these little critters were.
My husband was very scientific and mature.  He used Google.  Because Google knows all.  He searched for a pretty long time using searches like "caterpillar crawling with leaf shell" and "caterpillar crawling with cocoon"  and soon declared it a mystery.  So I too decided to be scientific and mature as well and Googled "Caterpillar Leaf Butt".  And Eureka!  I solved the mystery of the creepy crawly...

I found THIS site!  What's That Bug?  It's like a blog or something with user submitted photos of mysterious bugs and creepy crawly things.  You take a picture of a bug you can't identify and they will tell you what it is.  It's pretty amazing!  There are just so many bugs out there that honestly science hasn't identified them all yet.  But anyway I discovered that this my friends is a bagworm !  It is the caterpillar of a moth. It travels around in it's cocoon looking for food.  And when it's full it puptes and emerges as either a moth (if it's a dude) or a well...a mateable wingless moth I guess (if it's a chick).  They female can't fly so she just sits and waits for the male to show up (Sounds kind of familiar...typical men).   Then she lays the eggs in her cocoon and leaves...to die.  Yeah.

Anyway they have some great pictures.  Like this one:

Anyways...thanks for bearing with me while I nerded out on you.

The thing I love about my hubby as that he likes to learn as much as I do.  We both have that curiosity bug.  I hope that it will create a home full of learning and questions and a love for the quest for answers.  Family dinner filled with discussions on honey bees or dolphin speech patterns or something else equally as nerdy (don't get me started on bees ok.  Bees are cool.  Dave and I just put a NOVA documentary about bees on our Netflix Que....  yeah we're nerdy...we just try and keep most of it hidden away from the public...)

M.I.A.

Ok so I know I have been a little M.I.A. from the blogging world.  From the internet world actually.  There has been a lot going on!  First I had to make a cake for my favorite uncle's 49th birthday.  Chocolate cake and Vanilla buttercream icing.  Alas, I finished it SO last minute I didnt get to take a picture of it.  :(  But this was my inspiration:

cupcaketastic's flickr photostream

Yep...Minus the giant numbers on top.  The outside of mine was white not chocolate.  And it was one tier not two.  And I made lots of  white and red chocolate transfer candles and placed them on the sides just like this.  :)  My aunt took a picture of it tho....maybe she will send me a copy of a photo so I can post it *hint hint* 

While I was testing cake recipes I decided to make us a chocolate whopper cake....it's like chocolate x10!!  Overload.  It's delicious.  Alas, again no pictures...sigh.  But that is another post.  You know I will have to make another one of those...;)

Ok so then my cousin and his wife had their baby and so you know me, I HAD to make them cookies!  Naturally....

She decorated her nursery in Peter Rabbit.  So I FINALLY got to use my new toy.  My edible ink printer.  Yeah buddy.  And I made a dozen cookies.  But AGAIN no pictures.  My husbands hotel was hosting an anime convention that weekend (AKON) and he took the camera to work to take pictures of everyone's strange get-ups.  So no pics of them....but here is the photo I used:

Turned out WAY better (and faster) than my attempt at hand painting the little guy.  That was....well....

let's just say that a lot of people gave me that kind "great effort" pat on the back that really translates to "my kid could do that but you're nice and I don't want to hurt your feelings..."

I told hubby last night that it had been a while since I had posted anything on the blog.  Or the cookie forum.  *Just FYI the cookie forum I refer to is Cookiers R Us.  Great place to go for all things cookie*  He looked at me and said "Does that mean it's time to bake AGAIN?"  Yes.  Yes it is.