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Wet-On-Wet Daisies

Soooooooo -- I have a (some) confession(s) to make -- I LOVE to make my kids' clothes into cookies. Also, I may or may not have, on more than one occasion, purchased clothing for my children solely because I wanted to make them into cookies. Also, there is a chance that I have a stack of clothing next to my cookie cutters that I intend to make into cookies before I let my children wear them. I'm just saying there's a chance . Also - and this has nothing to do with the first three - my nearly 2 year-old daughter saw a vacuum in action for the first time in her life . She was terrified. Basically, I can never vacuum again. I've got to look out for my daughter and her happiness. What I'm saying is that I have the cutest kids in the world and I have to make cookies to match. But I just make cookies to match their clothes . Because if I made matching hand cookies or something, that would be totally weird. And not at all appetizing. It would be closer to terrif

Ducks, Chicks, and Sheep. (No Bunnies)

I'm not a good holiday understander-er. I don't really get why its okay for strangers give my children candy in little buckets while they wander around the neighborhood in the dark on Halloween. How did THAT happen? I mean, I have done AT LEAST 20 minutes of research on that holiday, and I still can't figure it out. Or what about having an entire day dedicated to watching magic wildlife look at itself or its shadow or whatever it does and then decide if it would like to single-handedly change the seasons. OR a holiday where you are basically expected to put kool-aid in the shower head and serve your family dinner that's really a dessert, but it looks like dinner just to celebrate the fact that once again the first day of April came after the last day in March. Oh, and I think that if you are still single, you have pretend to be engaged for at least a day. It might be a rule. You should check. And....obviously... Easter. Have you seen the Easter decorations at th

COOKIE CONTEST with big fun prizes

I am SO EXCITED to share my big news with you today. I am hosting a contest! And not just any contest, it's a -- CREATIVE COOKIE DECORATING CONTEST!!! Here's what you have to do -- Bake a cookie using this cutter. If you don't have this cutter, that's okay, just print out this high-tech sharpie version (or trace it right on your computer screen. It's the right size.)  and then hand cut a cookie or four. And then decorate that cookie to look like anything except a present. That's it. Easy peasy. You can cut off parts of it if you want, or add pieces if you need to. Just make sure that we can tell it came from the present cutter to begin with. Before you start telling yourself you won't enter because you can't win --- there is more than one way to win. Stay with me. The cookies will be judged by a panel of judges. One of them is my mom, so no dirty words, okay? The judges come from backgrounds in graphic design, party planning, sculpture, and pastr

Strawberry Cookies

I'm basically the worst friend I could ever have. I like all the wrong foods. I let myself make all sorts of impulse purchases that I know I'm going to regret later. And when I'm having a bad day, I never take myself out for a night on the town. I'm "way too busy" for that. I pressure myself into staying up real late making cookies and "socializing" on the internet and then I talk myself into a lazy morning drawing whales on a whiteboard that is still located on the floor from the previous day. (I told myself I'd clean it up...but I was lying .) And healthy food? Exercise? Just when I start thinking that I might start thinking about them...I realize that I'm already running a very successful sabotage campaign and I may as well order pizza for lunch.  Luckily, Korea's got my back on this one. Whenever you order a pizza, they put corn on top. It's what they do. Sometimes, they also cover it in waffle fries and mayo. But at least

Making Sugared Carrots

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away called, umm....Louth Lorea, there lived a girl named Leorganne. She liked to make cookies. She made cookies nearly every day of her life. She tried to keep it a secret from the big, bad "peoples" of the world that didn't understand. She was like a secret agent of the cookie world, trying to maintain her alter-identity by doing things like "laundry" or "cooking actual food." It was a rough life at times, but other times it was just real, real nice. Anyway...she got all obsessed with making carrot cookies for spring and then realized that she didn't have any carrot cookie cutters. Like, at all. Of her treasure trove of cutters, ZERO of them were carrot shaped. Sad, sad, sad. But she didn't give up her dream. That resourceful cookie maker Leorganne of Louth Lorea figured out how to cut out carrots from an ice cream cone cutter and a ... ummm, once again, I have forgotten the name of that little cutter. W

Easy Speckled Eggs

I've decided that women just don't give themselves enough credit. Guys are usually pretty good at that. They've set up this system to reward each other. Its a complex system involving high-fives, head nods and grunts. And it MEANS SOMETHING to them. It doesn't really cross genders though. I mean...a guy grunts and me, and I don't start feeling better about myself. I start thinking about maybe calling the police or something. I was thinking that we, as women, need to get together and come up with our own system. We could use a combination of points and levels. So, you know, when you see that girl at the store with fantastic patience in spite of the customer in front of her that has unloaded 3 carts of groceries at the "express" check-out, you can give her a quick, "5 points for patience! NICE JOB!" Or, how about that lady at the ER with two screaming (starving) children? You start talking to her and find out she has a third child who probab

My Baby Girl Cookies

  I live in South Korea. People are ALWAYS crowding around my children, especially my newborn. One time, I left my husband with the cart at a grocery store while I ran to the next aisle to grab some cereal. I came back and found my husband  on the outside of a gathering crowd of people with cellphones in their hands, all taking pictures and cooing to my grocery cart and infant daughter. Apparently, my husband had reached over to pull something off the shelf and they took that as sign of weakness and pressed their advantage.We just stood there discussing the merits of frozen mandu until everyone dispersed enough that we could reach through and reclaim our child. I'm not kidding. Or even exaggerating. This really happened. Every detail. Including the mandu conversation. Here's the deal. In Korea, babies don't leave their home until they are 100 days old. So people really don't see tiny babies. (And especially, they don't see tiny babies with blue eyes.) An

Keep Calm Cookies

Sometimes I'm really good at multi-tasking. I think it might be my super power. I can't fly. I don't laser things with my eyes. I have never in my life even contemplated the chance that I could break through a brick wall with my bare hands. And it were at all possible for me to run as fast as lightning...I would probably just run into stuff. But multi-tasking -- now that's MY bag of fruit. I can, and have, carried out 2 different conversations with 2 separate children while folding laundry and watching a movie. I can, and have, cruised the grocery store aisles with one hand on the cart, one hand simultaneously grabbing groceries and an 18 month old run-away, soothing a crying baby and somehow convincing my husband that tofu is an acceptable ingredient for that evening's dinner. AND still managed to remember those 2 coupons in my back pocket. I am also adept at helping my oldest with schoolwork, drawing with my girl, feeding the baby, reading gorgeous food blog

Rainbow Shamrocks

I'm not exactly what you would call "a great cook." In fact, I spent almost all of my growing up years trying to avoid learning how to cook or sew or do anything else that would later benefit me in life. My poor mother. Combine my lack of skill with the fact that I am the pickiest eater alive...she probably thought I would starve to death upon moving away from home. Well, that or somehow manage to live solely off cottage cheese and Wheat Thins. (She would be right on her second assumption.) These days I have kids. And I'm married to a guy who eats actual food. On a daily basis. It gets tricky. So I have created a system for making dinner. Basically, I take a whole bunch of different foods out of the fridge and freezer. You know, like vegetables, rice, eggs.... stuff that people eat. And then I pour it all into a bowl. Or a blender. Sometimes I even heat it up. And then...I hope madly that it isn't disgusting. Some days it works out and some days it doe

Icing Consistency -- It MATTERS.

Sometimes people ask my advice. I would say that its against my nature to tell people what to do, but that would be totally lying. I love telling people how they should live their lives, or exercise, or what kind of car to buy. Its just that people don't usually ASK. So as you can imagine, this is a little weird for me. I get a lot of emails from new friends just beginning their journey into the cookie decorating world. They tell me their stories (love that) and sometimes show me some pictures (love that too) and then they ask if I have any advice for them. And then I lose all sense of time and food and bedtime hours and write them a little novel that I could feasibly sum up in one little sentence. You can forget EVERYTHING you have ever learned about decorating cookies as long as your icing is the right consistency.  But, here's the deal. Not all of you are emailing me. And since I'm so good at dispensing unwanted advice, you are going to get the mini novel right h