Remember last year? I had just moved back to the good old US of A and had nearly zero belongings. My household furnishings consisted of a card table, 2 folding chairs, and a pot. I slept on a blanket on the floor and used my cell phone as an alarm clock, night light, and emergency weapon at 3 in the morning when my neighbor's cat knocked over a bucket in their backyard. I was making cookies with a grocery bag full of cutters my aunt had loaned me and some Ziplock bags. (As it turns out... more than a year later...I still haven't returned those cutters. I'm a bad person.) (Not entirely true. My aunt said they could stay and play for awhile longer. She'll come visit them if she gets lonely. She's a fantastic aunt like that.) My whole point here is that I made cookies like these last year. And never posted them. And I wasn't worried about it because who in their right mind would make graduation cookies with a blue ribbon cutter and a football cutter? ...

Sometimes you just need a little something more, you know? Like switching out your yoga pants for actual clothes when you go outside your house. Sometimes that's enough... but sometimes you want to get a little crazy and put on some mascara as well. Sometimes you've got a fantastic cookie design. And you love it. And it's perfect. But it's lonely and needs a friend. And we're all about love and friendship, but you've very nearly run out of time and you've completely run out of ideas and creativity because, let's be honest, you've been awake for 48 hours straight taking care of those fantastic and perfect cookies. I have a solution. Add some tiny filler flowers. You can always fit a couple more of them in the corners of your baking sheet. And if you pre-make a bunch of the middles, these flowers take literally seconds to ice. And you can use your left over icing to make sure they coordinate with the "perfect" cookies you just ...

I want to tell you something about mixing colors. And I've got a tiny little angel in my arms right now. And some Builder Guys knocking out walls in the back room of my house. And I have to pick up my son from school in about 20 minutes. So let's just get right to it, shall we? ** Because I love you all, I'm going to start at the beginning. And by "beginning" I mean "the primary colors." And those would be Red, Yellow, and Blue. They are the colors that make up all the other colors. For example, if you mix red and yellow together... you get orange. If you mix yellow and blue together, you'll find yourself looking at green. And what happens when you mix red and blue together? That's right... you get purple. Or violet. Or aubergine. You can call it whatever you want to... but if you mix red and blue together, you're going to come up with a color that lies somewhere between them on our color scale. And since we have purple on BOT...

I want to tell you about someone. Actually, I want to tell you about TWO someones. The first person you might already know. Her name is Anita. Sweet Hope Anita . She's a giver. She gives her time to make cookies to raise funds and awareness for ALS in honor of her brother Randy. She gives support to anyone she's ever met because she pretty much has the biggest heart on the planet. And not in an unhealthy-something's-got-to-give kind of way. More like a seeing-into-your-soul-truly-loving-a-person kind of way. She gives sprinkles and sanding sugar to a certain cookie decorator who lived in South Korea and had no way of acquiring said sugar products. She gives giant helium balloons to children. She gives of all that she has to those who don't have the same. Actually, I'm pretty sure she would give to people who even had more if she thought it would make them happy or brighten their day. And she does it all without a reason. Without needing applause or reco...

Jack Handey is a smart guy. He knows what he's talking about. I'm pretty sure he said something similar about icing... I over-mixed both of these icings. The icing on the left was a thinner, flood consistency icing when I started. After 3 days, it still wasn't dry. It was sticky and tacky and completely bendable. The icing on the right was a thicker, piping consistency icing. It dried as fast as it normally does, but was brittle and crumbly. And I dropped some of it and it completely shattered. And that is *not* what you want to put on your cookies. What should you do if you think you might have over mixed your icing? -- Plop some down on a plate or wax paper and let it dry for 4 hours. Is it still really wet and not at all drying? Is it tacky? Or is it over dry and brittle? You've beaten your icing too much. Sorry. Toss it. There's no coming back. Just let it go.

I love spring. I love the way you think it's getting warmer again "for real this time" and then it snows for 3 days straight. I love that my children think that if they can see the sun and the grass at the same time that they can wear shorts and sandals and ride their bikes around the neighborhood until 10pm. I love that they legitimately think it's a good idea. I love looking out the window and seeing the sun shining through the flecks of green that are new leaves budding on the trees and the feeling that you just *have* to go outside and enjoy the world and feel those rays of sun on your skin and then the icy blast of the wind knocks you back inside the second you actually open the door. I love that it never stops me from opening that door and just hoping it won't happen again.   I love that hope. Spring IS hope. I love spring. You know what I don't love? When I delete pictures that I actually wanted to keep. I really wanted ...