Pour Some Sugar.....

I love sugar cookies! They are a lot of work to make, but I don't think any other kind of cookie can come close when it comes to the joy the SIGHT of these automatically make in a person.

When I was a kid we made sugar cookies a few times around holidays. It wasn't too often, becuase now as a mother I understand that not only is it a time consuming project but a huge mess too. Really, to do the whole roll, cut and frost project you should set apart the better part of a day. Well I love making these sugary confections and love to eat them almost as much as I enjoy giving them away. Because of the lack of self control around them I limit them to only certain holidays.....Valentine's Day, Easter and Halloween (I know---there is too much sugar on Halloween---but the cookie cutters are awesome!). Well Valentine's day is this next Thursday and since the week days are so hectic I decided to make them this weekend.

Ok, and to be honest I had my tax appointment and I really love my accountant, Stuart. 'Specially knowing he works hard with me (and so sternly!) to make sure I find every thing I can to make the least painful tax experience for my little business possible. Last year I made him some of these cookies and he called raving about how they were the best sugar cookies he had ever had and asked if he could buy some from me for his entire office for Valentines Day. :) I had him subtract the cost of the cookies from my final bill and it saved me $30 so a girl can scheme a little right?

So there I was making the cookies, planning out how many I would need to give to all my visiting teaching families as well as David's home teaching families and then a few friends who really love cookies and don't mind the occasional butter/sugar binge. With Valentine's Day coming up I obviously had to cut out some hearts, but Eli had gotten some 'Ninja Bread Man' cookie cutters for Christmas so we had to try those out too( and if you ask me fighting guys are as symbolic of Valentines Day as hearts) and Preston found a beehive cookie cutter that made him think of Grandpa (the beekeepper) so we had to make some of those too. The cookies came out perfect and I was humming away ("Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting...."....it was the Ninjamen's fault. Too bad that was the only part I know of the song) knowing this was going to be a home run kind of a cookie day. I whipped up some butter frosting (real butter, whole milk, powder sugar and almond extract make the best sugar cookie frosting EVER). I sadly was running out of time so I determined to make only three colors of frosting rather than the 5 or 6 we usually like to turn out. After mixing up the frosting into pretty colors I found to my dismay that I was out of zip lock bags. I like piping the icing onto the cookies. Its faster, easier cleanup and looks better (I think) then frosting them with a knife or spatula.  Luckily I, being my innovative father's daughter found some breastmilk storage bags in the bag of the drawer. They were not as ideal as the ziplock bags as they had this annoying 'no-spill' feature that mean the plastic was folded into a shelf at the bottom, so it was hard to cut my hole for piping, but it worked.

Breastmilk storage turned frosting piping bags.

(*note that there was never actually any breast-milk stored in the bags.)

There they are! See the Ninja guy at the top?

 And just in time! I had enough time to let the frosting set while I ran to get dressed for our tax appointment (the house was a wreck, but it's Satuday so who cares?) and I came back to find Preston helping clean up....or helping himself, maybe both? Sneaky, sneaky boy.


Meantime, Eli (who had been outside with David) came bursting in with David following (why are they still outside at this point? We should be cleaned up and in the car) but before I can scold anyone Eli's is saying "Mom, Mom!" and David is saying "Olivia, you have to see this!" And in came Eli proudly, yet gently holding onto a little baby bunny. He was solid black with the softest fur. We all had to take a turn holding him naturally and we cooed over his cute little self. Eli looked so happy and proud:

  Somehow we managed to clean up and get the kids dressed and ready out the door for our tax appointment...and Stuart loved the cookies. However, we decided Dallin wasn't allowed at the next tax appointment, he might be a handsome tax break but he was no fun in the actual appointment.

So today (Sunday) I decided to finish frosting the cookies to take to the rest of the families. For our wedding (10 years ago--wow, really?) one of Carol's neighbors gave me some 'Mormon' cookie cutters. They are so funny! I have a temple, a covered wagon, a beehive and an Angel Moroni. There is a family in our ward who would especially appreciate those cookies. So I cut out a bunch of them. I held up the one of the Angel Moroni and asked the boys, "Can you tell what this is?" They both studied it and then Eli, with a  flash of inspiration said "It's a man blowing a horn and riding one of those one wheeled bikes!" What a mental image-- it made me laugh and he was right, it did look like that!So I wrote 'Moroni' on the cookies so there was no mistaking it for the families'


 Finally the the huge sugar project concluded. I delivered cookies all around and we finished off the mellow Sunday evening with the Swiss Family Robinson movie (tree houses, three brothers, tigers, and pirates...what's not to love?) and lounging about in our casual Sunday attire....Dallin likes to be really cas'.

Now I am off to start a cookie fast (I swear, I have eaten at least a dozen cookies by myself today!) and say a special prayer of gratitude that not only did I finally dispatch of (almost) all of the cookies to other loving homes, but that my job involves working-out hard every day this next week!


"Everybody was kung fu fighting......"