Missing In Action

Sorry I've been MIA all this week. It has been a really rough week for me and I just closed up. Drama started on Christmas Day and continued in a bad streak all week. Christmas is supposed to be a time of family and joy and love and giving. While it was definitely the worst Christmas I've ever known, there were also moments of total joy and I'm extremely thankful for that. My kids are amazing and I'm so beyond blessed. So rather than focus on the difficulties, lets focus on the GOOD stuff. 

It's been quite a year. My daughter got married, my son has received 6 acceptance letters to universities and earned his Black Belt and finishing up with his Board of Review for Eagle Scout. We hosted my in-laws 50th wedding anniversary big bash party and hosted my daughter's bridal shower. We've been extremely busy and  during all that, in 2011 I started this cookie obsession/hobby. I still have LOTS of cookies to show you from Christmas, so hopefully you're not sick of Christmas just yet. I made a whole bunch more snowglobes. I think this was my favorite cookie cutter this season. There are just so many possibilities with this one! My daughter and I found a Christmas coloring book at Target for $1 and I just felt compelled to make each of the pictures into a cookie!

 This one and the next one were clipart that I bought from a great artist on Etsy: M.S. Hanna Graphics 

 This cute polar bear is from an Etsy shop artist: Studio Cinco

 These next two are also from Studio Cinco

 Also Studio Cinco for this elephant and the turtle below

The snowglobes are fun huh!

So which one is your very favorite?

I hope you've all had a wonderful 2011 and I want to take this opportunity to thank you. Your comments lift me up and inspire me to continue to try to improve in my cookie decorating. I'm very thankful for you and all my cookie friends!

Snowglobe Cookies for Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! It is officially Christmas day, although most won't be awake for several more hours to start this magical day. I made lots and lots of cookies the other day, most of which did not get decorated and are in a tupperware container waiting to get beautiful after Christmas. I did what I could, but my super-woman cape just wasn't able to complete them all ;-) Here's a few of the ones that I did finish in time. I think this one is my favorite of this set:

I hope you all have an amazingly magical Christmas with your families. I can't wait to see my kids faces when they open their gifts. There's one in particular for my youngest. I put his small gift in a box and wrapped it and then put it in a larger box and wrapped it and a larger box and wrapped it... you get the idea. I think that will be super fun to watch ;-) I did this same thing to my daughter's gift a couple years ago too. Yaa I'm that kind of mom, I can't help myself ;-) Merry Christmas everyone! I wish you a blessed day with family and friends. 

Christmas Eve - Cookies For Santa

It is Christmas Eve! Santa Claus comes tonight! Are the kids excited? My kids are 27, 25 and our youngest is 17 so we don't have all the secrets of Santa anymore, but we're still pretty excited at my house. It is actually our last "official" family Christmas in my home. My daughter got married last summer so she will be starting her own Christmas traditions and my youngest will be going off to college in just a few months. I'd like to say we're going out with a bang, but it's actually going to be a small, simple Christmas. The key is that it will be filled with love, joy and fun and that is what is important.

Did you make cookies for Santa? This is what will be waiting for Santa at my house tonight. As you can see I ran out milk, but I'll be sending the youngest out for a quick run to get milk for Santa :-)

Every year we have a Christmas Eve tradition. Everyone in the family gets to open ONE present and it's always a pair of pajamas to wear for Christmas. The girls match (me and my daughter) and the boys match (hubby and son and now my daughter's husband too). This is the last year we'll be doing this tradition, but we've really enjoyed it all these years. What are some of your family Christmas traditions?

I hope you get everything on your wish list and enjoy a blessed holiday with family and friends and remember the reason for the season. Thank you Lord for our health, my children, my husband, my parents and the incredible people I am thankful to call my friends. Merry Christmas everyone! 

P.S. I woke up to this email today. Do you guys know how much I'm so touched by your kind words? I feel so blessed. Thank you so very much. My heart is so full.

I LOVE your cookies. I love cookie decorating and you give me great ideas. I just wish I was as talented as you. Have a Merry Christmas!

Christmas Cookies - Penguins

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve! Are you ready? I'm SOOOO not ready. I was ready, I really was. I had the presents all wrapped, all the cookies were done getting beautiful and bagged up and given to friends, my house was decorated and sparkly clean. Then.... I realized I didn't have any cookies left for my family. No cookies to bring to the in-laws on Christmas Eve, no cookies to bring to my mom's on Christmas day. Totally unacceptable. And what's worse is that I still had all these awesome cookie ideas swirling around in my head that I wanted to make for Christmas. So any normal person would either get over it or go and make a batch of cookie dough. Well we already know that I'm beyond normal. I think the word is hopeless. My daughter took a video of me last Christmas promising to never make too many batches of cookie dough again. Yaaa sure, that lasted... so here we go again. I made 11 batches, yes ELEVEN batches of cookie dough. A bunch of presents that I ordered online arrived waiting to be wrapped and my house got messy with powdered sugar and flour and tons and tons of cookie cutters. Does this girl ever learn...?

Oh well. I am who I am, right?! The good news is that I stayed up late (again) and wrapped all the presents and cleaned up my house sparkly again. I hope to tackle the cookie decorating today and see if I can get a few done in time for my family for Christmas. Remember my penguin fetish? Yaa I know you do. This is what I came up with in my way of penguins. Sorry for the bad photos and bad lighting. I can't seem to take a good picture to save my life. Good thing I can at least make cookies that taste yummy! :-)

 and a Santa stuck in the chimney from eating too many Cristin's Cookies ;-)

 I often wonder if people really read my blog and enjoy the cookie pictures. Today I woke up to the nicest email that truly made my day:

Merry Christmas,

I would like to wish you and your family the most wonderful Christmas!!  Thank you for your blog,, your stories, your passion for decorating cookies.  I love to see your emails arrive,, I am also excited to see what you have done with dough and powdered sugar… You keep me inspired..

A fan,

Iowa City Iowa

So with that, can I just say that y'all truly make my day. I love that there are people out there that enjoy my crazy cookie obsession. My hubby gets to come home to a house that smells yummy, but I can promise you he would rather smell a roast in the oven ;-) I love that y'all enjoy the cookie pictures and my crazy comments and the tutorials. I hope you'll join us for the next cookie challenge coming up in January. Excited!

Merry Christmas everyone! Tomorrow - what else - of course cookies for Santa!