Use this icing color palette and the formulas to make icing for your next birthday cookie project!!  I used Chefmaster brand food coloring for all of these formulas.  If you're not sure what the "parts" mean, or how to use these formulas, check out THIS POST for detailed step-by-step photos!  When I make very light or pale icing colors like the green color above, I mix the food coloring into a very small amount of icing (2 tablespoons) first and then use that saturated icing to color the rest of my icing. LIKE THIS .  See more of my color palettes and formulas HERE!  Grab the cutters: Balloon , Gift , Cupcake , and Plaque .

Use this cookie decorating tutorial to learn how to make present or gift sugar cookies! Tell me if you've heard this story before. A cookie decorator eats Thanksgiving dinner with her family...falls asleep...dreams about making cookies nonstop and never sleeping for an entire month. Then wakes up and realizes it WASN'T a dream (except the part about riding the sparkly unicorn...that part was definitely a dream) and she has exactly 4 days left until Christmas.

Oh my goodness. It's like winter JUST won't go away this year. I mean...I like the guy and all, but sometimes he's just a little too clingy, you know? Like, maybe take some time to find yourself and get a hobby. YOU'LL be happier, I'LL be happier. And when we finally come back together again...in say NOVEMBER...our relationship will be all the more stronger for the time away. But this insecurity, this weird need to remind me over and over again that you still exist? I'm over it. Take your snow and go.

I tried to call in "sick" today. After 4 hours of sleep and shoveling nearly a foot of snow yesterday...I figured I had earned a few hours on the couch with my electric blanket. Although, if we're being completely honest that electric blanket is just the gateway drug that leads to an afternoon of Amazon shopping. But as it turns out,

I took my baby to the swimming pool for the first time tonight since she became actually aware of the world. (LOVE this age by the way!!) She looked at all that water like it was a controlled substance. Which, to be fair, it kind of IS at my house. My girls have overflowed our bathtub TWICE in the last 12 months in an effort to get the temperature "just right". And even when there are only 2 inches in thing to begin with, they still manage to get most of it on the bathroom floor during mermaid exercises. Mermaid exercises. That's happening at my house. I don't even.... I mean.... Mermaids. I don't even know how that happened. One minute I am raising 3 little girls that like dirt and bugs and baseball. And then without even blinking, their closets are overflowing with shoes and princess dresses and love notes they've written each other. And I'm not really sure how the next 17 years of my life are going to turn out, but at least I'll have...

I don't really remember kindergarten. I mean, I know there was a yellow table that involved scissors and for a brief time - glue. And then someone (not me) showed everyone in the class how to put glue on their hands to make snake skin...and that was officially the end of the glue at the yellow table. And really, that's all I've got for kindergarten. So really...I'm the furthest thing from a Kindergarten Expert that you could imagine. My first child was a boy-child. He went to an all day kindergarten in another country where they got snacks, 3 recesses, and watched  "Magic School Bus" and took naps after lunch. Kindergarten was basically a dream come true for that kid. Which did NOT prepare me for kindergarten in the real world. And by "real world" I mean "with girls". Seriously, when did kindergarten get to be such a high-pressure environment? The girl has 11 pairs of shoes, and STILL doesn't  have the right shoes for Tuesdays. ...

I'm going to petition to make grocery shopping a sport. I'm not really sure WHO it is that you would have to petition or even really how to do it. But if I can figure out how to use Twitter... I am pretty sure I can figure this out. I mean... it's physical exertion, right? 25 pound bags of sugar and flour don't just lift themselves up into your shopping cart. Your children don't just walk quietly next to you as they pass their favorite candy/toy/game/random-what-have-you-with-flashing-lights-and-noises. And then you lift all those groceries up on to the counter, then back into the cart, you have to push it across the parking lot while simultaneously corralling said children and dodging into the path of cars to snag them up since you really weren't very good at corralling them and once you get to your car, you unload everything just to lug it all back out again when you get home. All of this would be totally fine and carefree if your diet consisted of sunfl...

Street markets were all the rage when I lived in South Korea. They had been for hundreds of years. My kids loved them because they knew if they found something they wanted they could leverage the shop owner against me as well as their own youthful smiles and charm. And they knew that if there were enough " I love you forever Mommies " while the shop owner pushed the items at me, I would end up with another bag hanging off my arm while we went off in search of cinnamon-walnut filled bread and mini water bottles with a cartoon character cap. But I drew the line at junk. There was a little wind-up mouth toy that my 5 year old desperately wanted. Desperately. He had moved right past the exclamations of love, through begging and very nearly into the tantrums before collecting himself and settling on the pitiful "I thought you loved me but now I know I was wrong forever" face. And let me be clear. I do love him forever. But the toy was worth about 12 cents. It was ...

Can I tell you a secret? I totally thought that the submissions for my own challenge opened TODAY.  I had some vague idea of the cookies I would create. I planned to make them sometime. And then all of a sudden, I was procrastinating over at the Cookier R Us forum and someone mentioned that they had already linked up. WHAT?! I have officially crossed the "too much" procrastination line. So I turned my oven on at 11pm last night and out came these fun treats. You guys... this was probably one of my favorite challenges yet. I mean, I got to spend HOURS browsing around the world in my jams (vicariously from my couch of course) just to put together the Pinterest board for the challenge. And then I got to stare at those gorgeous photos even longer while pretending to think about birthday parties. And THEN... I got to make these lovely little gems. And also, this has nothing to do with the challenge, but I got a new cake plate last night. And I like that t...

Let me tell you a joke. I used to think that I got to plan my own children's parties. I dreamed of all the fun themes I could choose and the perfectly matching decorations and the sumptuously laid out food and dessert tables. And all the wrapping paper would coordinate perfectly with the invitations and the party favors. I forgot to factor in reality. I have a child that is very nearly 3 years old. I have been trying to arrange her party according to her directions for the last 2 weeks. Luckily for me, she doesn't even know what a pony is yet. She actually doesn't even know how to plan a party. You would think she would trust me to make the best possible decisions for this momentous occasion in her life. After all, I am taller than her.... so obviously I'm going to be better at hanging streamers and unlocking the door and replacing light bulbs, and also I can bake, and she's not even allowed to use the oven yet. Her instructions are simple. Pink. And Cupc...

There is this game called " Buying Groceries With Children ." Any of you guys played it? It's got life-like graphics and sound effects, and apparently its an old classic, because even my parents played it for awhile when they were younger. I think there's an app for it now.   Basically you have to get from " the car " all the way through " the check-out lane " and then back to " the car " without screaming, crying, injuries, or loss of a child AND you have get every item on your list without getting any junk food. I'm awful at it. I've never made it past Level One.   One (or more) of the children always end up crying. Usually because one (or more) of the other children have hit them. And then the other one hits back and they are both crying which makes the baby cry because she just wants everyone to get along. And the guy back at the meat counter starts walking out front like he legitimately thinks something is wro...