Learn how to make some simple anemone flower decorated sugar cookies with this royal icing cookie decorating tutorial!! Y'all it's been a hot minute, day, year, lifetime since I've posted. I offer no excuses or reasons or apologies. I simply offer you - some anemone cookies!

 Learn how to make some brightly colored tropical flower decorated sugar cookies with this royal icing cookie decorating tutorial!! My brain follows a semi-predictable pattern every spring.  YEAY!!!!!!!!!! I haven't seen the sun in 62 years! It's finally spring again! I love you Spring! I love you! I'm going to take you home and squish you and love you forev----

Learn how to make some 3D piped ruffle flowers with royal icing with this cookie decorating tutorial!!  I've started categorizing my days by how many people in my home have had a complete meltdown before 10am. One child sobbing over a missing Lego piece that is the size of a splinter and can apparently cure cancer while simultaneously dancing a jig -- Threat Level 1.

Learn how to make some easy and simple garden wedding flower decorated sugar cookies with this royal icing cookie decorating tutorial!!   I went to a wedding last weekend in a garden. It was beautiful. The flowers were beautiful. The bride was gorgeous. And my children...well...to be perfectly honest...my children we're actually unbelievably amazing. That NEVER happens. Especially at the end of a summer vacation in which they are squished together because we are remodeling forever and it will never ever be done for a hundred years. (Or so it would seem.) You guys.

Use this cookie decorating tutorial to learn how to make decorated sugar cookies that look like poppies! I grew up in an era of Trapper Keepers, Garbage Pail Kids (Although totally taboo and a little bit naughty...EVERYONE I know had at least three collectible stickers), children running generally amok while wearing cut-off jean shorts and t-shirt rings , (who knew you could still BUY those?!) Jellies, E.T. and "improving yourself".

This post is sponsored by Bob’s Red Mill. I kind of love my CHOCOLATE COOKIE RECIPE . And judging by the number of emails and messages I get about it every week -- you guys do too! The two questions I get asked most often are: 1) How can you tell when chocolate sugar cookies are done baking? (Find the answer HERE .) 2) How do I make it gluten free? 

Use this cookie decorating tutorial to learn how to make decorated tulip sugar cookies. ACTUAL conversation with my 7 year old daughter this morning: Her: Hey mom, can you do my laundry today? It has to be TODAY. Me: *all happiness leaving* Her: Because I need more socks for Friday. Me: For FRIDAY? Do you have socks for today? Her: Yes. But I won't have enough for Friday. Me: Friday is three days away. I can do your laundry tomorrow or even Thursday. Her: And it will be done by Friday?!! You guys. She LEGIT thinks that laundry takes THREE DAYS.

My son went on a field trip downtown today. I also had some things to do downtown today. In a random turn of events, I found myself driving behind his school bus. So naturally, I did what any mother would have done and drove the exact same speed as the bus...creeping up window by window until I found my son and his friends. Definitely NOT in a stalker-y way. In a fun, totally trendy and cool mom kind of way. Because you know...I'm awesome like that. And I'm *sure* my 10 year old that weirdly started hiding under his seat felt the exact same way as me. I mean... he probably was reading some graffiti on the back of the seat in front of him and it probably went all the way down so he kind of needed to duck down and maybe hide his head a little bit so he could read it all. You know...because it was probably like particle physics or something and he just really wants to get a jump on that before college. I'm so proud of him.

You guys. I hope you are ready for this blog post. When Shirlyn  of Cookies Art by Shirlyn showed me these graphic design style floral wedding cookies I almost lost my mind. They are GORGEOUS!!!! The colors! The details! I'm still obsessing over them. I just kept going back over and over again like a total creeper in the night just staring at them. Luckily for all of us, even though Shirlyn had just moved to the United States, she sweetly agreed to show us all how she made them!!! Isn't she the best?!!! When Georganne contacted me to ask if I can write a guest post, I was so excited and happy to do it for sure! She asked if I can do tutorial on how to make one of the two designs (Cake Stand and Congratulations) from the bridal shower set I did back in March. I just told her - I am going to do both!

Sometimes (always) at the end of the day, I just want to lay down on the couch and look at pictures of beautiful cookies and pretend that feeding my kids popcorn for dinner is totally a legit parenting decision. And sometimes I find a picture of gorgeous cookies that makes me completely forget all of my parenting decisions -- good and bad.

You guys. I think I need an intervention. My plant habit is out of control. I'm like a child waiting for the tooth fairy. Every morning I run outside to see if my seeds have come up or if my plants have any new leaves...and just like that poor, sad, nameless child...nothing seems to have happened in my sleep. (I mean...hypothetically, right? The tooth fairy would NEVER EVER forget to come and replace that piece of oral debris with shiny, magical treasure of love and excitement. Never.....ever.....ever.)

You guys. I wish you could all be right here in my living room THIS VERY SECOND!!!!! I **NEED** someone else to be hearing this!!! My little very-nearly-three-but-totally-the-boss-thank-you-very-much Little P is playing the piano and singing for me. I'm not sure if you've heard the song before, but it goes a little something like this --

My littlest one can count to ten now. It goes like this -- "1, 2, 3, 4, Mommy, Daddy, 10." She's pretty much brilliant. I couldn't be more proud. She's pretty much a shoe-in for the cookie community. Because, let me tell you -- the place is full of brilliance. I'm not sure if you've heard of Callye from Sweet Sugarbelle or Jill from Jill FCS ... (Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! Best joke ever.)... but I'm kind of obsessed with their styles. They both have such a fantastic way of keeping things SIMPLE with just the right amount of perfect details that make a design completely...PERFECTION. They are like the Michelangelo and the DaVinci of the cookie world. (If only they had 2 more friends and were green -- they could make a mildly entertaining television cartoon series about decorating cookies underground while solving crimes...) Stop distracting me! My point is - I've always wanted to be just like them. I've studied them. And stalked them. Once, ...

  If you've ever been in a room with me for longer than 12 seconds...you know that I'm a little bit of a "non-listener." It's just so hard to hear the sound of responsible people over the noise of my inner carnival. I'm all in or all out. And usually that means that I'm all in for whatever crazy idea I've got going on in my brain. And that I have no room for advice or actual reasoning. And also that I've probably got candy hidden in at least 3 different places "just in case." Because really, you never know when you're going to need some. And you can't be too careful when it comes to candy emergencies. What I'm really trying to say here is that I actually have NO EARTHLY IDEA how this rose cutter is supposed to be used. There was a diagram on the back of the package, but I may have thrown it away before I read the words that someone so carefully placed there. My point is that this video shows how **I** made some roses with...

Sometimes I get a little wrapped up in cookies. Sometimes I can't stop thinking about them. I'll be walking through the grocery store and notice a snowflake pattern on a box of cookies and then completely zone out trying to remember if I have a cutter that would work for that pattern while simultaneously planning 4-5 more designs that would complete the set perfectly. I end up at home 20 minutes later with 3 jars of sweet pickles, Ajax and a bag of Cheetos that my daughter swears I just bought for her. I mean... sure, you could use the word "obsessed" if you wanted to get all detailey and accurate. But really, haven't we all been there? The poppy cookies I made for Veteran's Day have been living their own life this week. They kept me up at night and made an awful mess of my house. And they would not stop talking to me. They just didn't come out right the first time. But I couldn't decide what was wrong with them. My head said everything...bu...

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...

  Remember that one time that every single location in the United States simultaneously had rain and blue skies at the same time? Some experts have been brought in for consultation. And after negotiating their fee in cookies and microwave popcorn, they have determined that this phenomena is something called "spring."  They were unable to tell me how this "spring" contrivance came to be...but they did mention that no one has ever seen Spring and Batman in the same room together. Also there was something about unicorns and possibly flowers. It really didn't make sense to me because I stopped listening when the popcorn slowed to about 3 seconds between kernels popping. I mean... that's serious business right there. If you don't have your head in the game you can ruin everything and unless you like the taste of charred grains and a house that smells like you lit it on fire with a spark plug and dryer lint...there's no excuse to be daydreaming abo...

I might have a smidgeon of an obsession with daffodils. I absolutely love that they are the harbingers of spring. And they are yellow...which is the emotional opposite of the sludgy gray color of winter.  And best of all... they just keep coming back every year. You plant them once and then every spring after that they're like, "No, don't worry. I'm cool. You just sit there pretending that you're on a tropical island because you saw the sun for more than 12 minutes today. I don't need your stinking attention and your water and your fertilizer that you give to all your other plants. I don't even need your weeding. And you know why? Because I. AM. DAFFODIL. That's why."   Daffodils are my kind of flowers.

Have you ever tried sweeping a house with a crawling baby? I actually think that brooms are like dog whistles... but for small children. The very act of picking up the broom signals them from all reaches of the house. Like the Pied Piper, it beckons them without their knowledge. They come to the kitchen in droves...suddenly needing drinks and snacks and maybe a story or two. The broom is especially strong when calling to children that aren't walking yet. It creates a powerful,  undeniable urge to crawl after the broom, to reach it's very bristles and then to finally sit in the pile of crumbs and sift through them to find appropriate nourishment in the form of crayons or bits of cereal. I'd give up on sweeping if I could. I tried once. And I made it exactly 2 days. That might not seem like a lot, but if you have small children at your home, you know that 2 days is long enough to start wondering what the color of your floor really is and to collect enough Legos to bui...

You guys. It's almost Thanksgiving. It's like...getting the turkey out of the freezer and trying to find the pie tins close. And re-evaluating my decision to make stuffing from actual bread because I don't want to get my kids bundled so I can go to the store and buy celery close. And digging through the basement cupboards at 11pm because I just realized I have no idea where the table cloths are and then starting the laundry at 2am because I finally found them in the Halloween box and for some reason they are covered in glitter and olive oil close. In case you aren't sure... that's pretty close. At this point, I'm going to make a crazy wild guess here and say that if you didn't already plan on making these before Thanksgiving...it's probably not going to happen. But I really wanted to show them to you. and you can make them for any holiday. Or for any occasion really. They would be the perfect "Thanks-for-helping-me-move-my-couch-I'm-sorry-...