What is better than cookies?

That is actually a trick question, nothing is better than cookies :)  Well except maybe cute cookies!

So for Tiffany's baby shower, I ordered Thing 1 & Thing 2 cookies from Snickety Snacks and they were sooooooooooooo adorable and so cute!  Well as a former cake decorator, I kept thinking, I could probably make some myself if I ever got the time.  Well this weekend I had one whole day free!  In the world of Laura, this so rarely happens, I figured it was worth the time to try my hand at cute cookie making.  Well I had been checking out pinterest and started following a cookie blog: The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle.  Well she has all kinds of cookie inspiration, as well as recipes so I was hooked.  I tried her made from scratch cookie recipe & made from scratch royal icing and both worked out beautifully :)  (I had tried this weeks earlier with a slight fail---I used sugar cookie dough and made my icing from powered sugar and water, it was still tasty but the icing never set and the cookies expanded A LOT while baking.  No worries, I gave them to my sister, brother in law, and nephew and they all thoroughly enjoyed them).

See Corbin was excited about the first round of cookies:

And ate the whole thing!

 But if you look closely you can see the icing spreading and the cookie is just a simple circle.  Well I was up for the challenge of second attempt and I was not taking chances with my dough or icing.  So now witness the process (in pictures):

Step 1: Make the dough!

Step 2: Cut out cute shapes and bake the cookies--can you guess what we are making?

Step 3: After cookies have cooled, begin outlining

Step 4: Then fill in the icing with fill color (this is called flooding the cookie)

Step 5: Ice and flood the bottom part

Step 6: Add Detail & Viola, you now have a margarita cookie (my two favorite things combined)

I also made Sunglasses

And Flip Flops

And more flip flops!

So let me know what you think?  Second attempt better or worse?  I checked this morning and all the icing set perfectly, most of it was set by yesterday afternoon but the flip flops took some extra time!  I had one with my lunch today and let me tell you, they are super YUMMY!

A few odds and ends to end the week!

Happy Friday Yall!  This week has flown by and I KNOW next week will too!  But in the mean time let's catch up, shall we?  What's been going on in Laura-land (sounds so close to LaLa land, which is where I feel like I am half the time anyway!)

Tuesday night, I caught up with the bro & mom at our newest Carytown addition:

I am fully obsessed, I loved this place when I was in Atlanta like yeaaaaaaaaars ago and I love it in Richmond too!  We had Pepperoni & Banana Pepper pizza (don't knock it, til you try it!)

In other news, my friend Sara and I are starting to actually consider tattoos, and I am leaning toward this one:

I Love the intricate-ness and simplicity all together!  I would probably only get the verse, not the words and it would be small, think like 1.5 inches wide.  So let me know what you think (and before you ask, yes I know what I am doing--I have wanted a tattoo for like 12 years now so I dont think the desire is going to go away anytime soon).

In other, very fun news, if you are not currently following me via feedly or another RSS reader, then I have added a link for you to follow me via email, you will find it on the RIGHT side of your screen, just under the "About me" section.  I also added the top 10 most read blog posts to date, so you can get a quick look at what everyone else is interested in too!

Well that is all from me for now, off to more racin' action tonight and Kings Dominion tomorrow!  I hope everyone has a....

As baby countdown 2013 is still underway, no I am not talking about the Royal birth, we all know that has already happened; I am talking about the arrival of my two nephews in the coming days or weeks.  So I am trying to busy myself with other fun things as I anxiously await their arrival!  This week I got to start my week off just right with lunch with this beautiful lady:

Me and Nannie!

Yup, my beautiful 95!!! year old grandmother decked out in her purple ensemble.  We dined at the classiest of places, Burger King!  All kidding aside, this week has been pretty calm, which I can only imagine to be the calm before the storm since next week is gonna be insanely busy.  Next week we have our seminars, this is nothing new, we have been doing them for years, normally we are working with 30-40 people tops.  This time each evening will be about 80 people and guess who is in charge?  Yup, you guessed it, me!  At any rate, I am trying to savor these nights of nothing but cooking or meeting up with a friend, knowing that next week is going to be long nights and quick days!

Happy Hump Day!

Weekend Recap

So another weekend has passed by way too quickly, but such is life!  My dear friend Sara was in town visiting this weekend from Baltimore.  She actually ended up coming down Thursday night and worked from my home on Friday (we figured out this was a fantastic approach to avoid Friday after work traffic).  So Friday after work, we hung out for a bit then headed to dinner at my favorite Greek place in Richmond, Basilis' Greek Cuisine.  It was yummy!  Afterward we went over to my friend, Lila's house for game night. Which consisted of 2 games of Telestrations and a round of Cranium--girls vs. boys!  

Lila and Patrick!  Lila drew Ms. Piggie and Patrick guessed "Ms. Piggie's hair and a sad bat"

After game night, we came back home and went to bed (before 12--we are getting older for sure).  Saturday morning we were up at like 8:30 since we plan to head over to the Farmer's Market here.  We looked around, then waited in line for our doughnut!  Yup, its bigger than my hand.  Best. Doughnut. Ever!

After the farmer's market, we went to World Market & Trader Joe's before grabbing lunch at Kroger, then headed home to shower and relax!

At the farmer's market, I also picked up some doggie treats, including an edible dog treat mustache, but before I would let the dogs eat it, I made them both pose for pictures!

After laying around and watching some trash tv and showering, we decided we would go for Mexican for dinner and then go see the movie The Heat, which was soooooooooooo cute and very funny!

The only picture I got of us!

All in all, it was a lovely weekend with a great friend! Sara had to  leave early on Sunday to get back, so I went to church then came home to do some cleaning before heading to CJ's for some afternoon time in the pool:

Hope everyone had a fun and relaxing weekend!

Happy Friday all!  Since this week has been pretty chill, no major updates to report, so lets go with a reading update, shall we?  

Also in other fun Friday news, my friend, Sara is in town for the weekend so who knows what we are going to get into this weekend, pictures to come next week :)

Reading Update - July

1. Because I said So by Ken Jennings
2. Mary Mary by James Patterson
3. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
4. When I Don't Desire God by John Piper
5. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
6. 40 Love by Madeline Wickham
7. The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

Still to go....
8. She's got Issues by Nicole Unice (started 7/10/13)
9. The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin (started 7/15/13)
10. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
11. Private Berlin by James Patterson
12. Wedding Night by Sophie Kinsella
13. Private London by James Patterson

More Racing Fun!

Some may say we are obsessed, I say we are fans!  Years ago (maybe 4-5), Emily and I started going to the Friday night races at Southside Speedway and guess what?  We loved it!  The crowd, the cars, the noise, the fans, the BYOB policy (yup, I just went there!)  It is super affordable fun for a Friday night.  So....fast forward to 2013, I think we have already beat our past records with 4 races in the books this summer already, but more fun is just around the corner, and I think we have done our best to bring on some new fans this year (cough cough: Courtney & CJ).

This past Friday was no exception, we braved the cloudy sky and went with faith that the rain would hold off, and it did!

Emily, CJ, and me!

I think this might be qualifying happening here! Which explains why no one is really in the stands!

Love that action!!!

Take a look at this one, our crew of two (just a few years ago) has expanded!  On Friday night we had all of 6 people there to cheer on the drivers!

Interesting piece of information, Friday night was the qualifier for the Legends cars, this guaranteed a spot in NY or something for some big race.  ANYWAY, turns out, to be a legends driver, you only have to be 12!  So the guy who was really doing well was a mere 15 years old, not old enough to legally drive but he can RACE a Legends car!  

There were a few pretty epic wrecks on Friday, one where the car went up on the wall, a few cars hashing it out on the track and of course another Legends causality.  It is so cute when the little cars get picked up by the tow truck and hauled away!  No worries though, all the drivers were fine!

So what did you do this past weekend?  Anything fun and exciting? It is hard to believe that July is already over half way over.  Those little nephews will be here before I know it!

A nursery fit for two!

As promised, here is the little nursery for the twins! 

Nursing Chair with the little hats for the boys!

I like to call this area, the Cuddle nook!  Cause I just feel like there will be some quality cuddle time happening here!  A cute bedside table, yellow chevron lamp, red picture frame with a picture of Momma and her first little boy!  The dresser was an old one that was at the Lake house that had missing handles and was a dark wood.  They painted it white, switched out the hardware and now its perfect for the twin's room!

 A red clock up on the wall!

This might be one of my favorite things, this is an old window panel and the idea is to fill each opening with Dr. Seuss book covers (that is my job to bring down when I come meet the little guys!)

Example of said book cover!  We scanned them in and will be printing them on paper the size of the window.

And lastly, the cribs!  Two matching white cribs from Ikea.  We got $10 fitted sheets at Target in Navy blue and I made those red dotted bedskirts!  So cute!  It really ties the room together.  

I think we decided, after names are picked out, we are doing letters above the beds (like the picture below) with their first initial!

M may not be the letter used, obviously!

Flashback Friday

What a cute little child I was....

Dance Recital, age 4 or 5

School picture, 2nd grade

Long weekend visit to Norfolk

So technically our office was to be closed at 1pm on Wednesday and all day Thursday for the July 4th holiday.  But I convinced my boss to let me trade in my half day on Wednesday for a full day on Friday--I know sweet!!!  So with my long weekend, I headed down to Norfolk to get in some quality nephew time with Corbin before those two other boys make their appearance.  And to put the finishing touches on the nursery (post to come)!  So here is a little picture preview of my weekend:

Just a little shot of OJ!

Corbin loves his dogs!

 Friday we headed to the Children's Museum, which was awesome!  Tiffany even threatened to leave me there childless while she took Corbin home for a nap!  But I did not want to be the adult creeper at the kid's museum!

Corbin & the frog

Corbin drives the bus!

Corbin drives the boat!

Then Friday afternoon, we came home, post nap and played outside in the sprinkler!  That boy loved it!

Spraying his head!

Starting to discover that he can spray out!

Wonder how far this will go.....

Turns out I can get Daddy!

Here is a little play by play!

 Saturday morning was spent at the beach playing in the water with everyone!  We had a good time.  Then we came home for nap time and Tiffany and I ran out to get stuff for the nursery and dinner supplies!  Then while mom and Corbin were playing, Josh and I got to grilling!

Yummy dinner!

This boy loves his corn!

I fully aggree--it was YUMMY!

Sunday morning we were up bright and early and I knew I had to get on the road so I could beat the holiday beach traffic leaving!  But we got a few hours of play time in before church!

CUTE!

Silly Faces!

What a mommy's boy!

And an Auntie Lala Boy :)

And because she is always cute, here is one of Stella!  

Now to make this post even longer, here are some cute videos of the little energizer bunny:

And a little background on this next one, Corbin and I were playing upstairs on Sunday morning and I went downstairs to grab some water.  Tiffany shouts to Josh in the other room, "Daddy, come look at how cute my boy is!" and Corbin responds, "I am not your boy, I am Lala's boy!"  These declarations are few and far between so I had to get it on video: