Let Freedom Ring...

Even though July 4th was a long weekend, I still found myself in town for a change of pace (which was super nice!)  So I put on my blue shorts, white shirt, and red shoes and did what any other American would....

Posed for a picture with Abraham Lincoln!

The neighborhood next to ours does a small family style Fourth of July parade and live music, so Bons, CJ (who was in route to the beach) and myself went to watch it and of course when presented with Abraham Lincoln--who would say no to a picture with him?  (Well actually Bons said no, but that is what it is!)

After getting home, I quickly got my car and headed off to meet up with Anna.  She had invited me to come with her to hear Patrick Henry's reenactment of the Give me Liberty or Give me Death speech at the Historic St. John's Church!  It was toasty as we were waiting in line, but it was definitely worth checking out.

Beautiful Stain Glass inside

 Afterward,we could not resist getting a picture with more presidents and historic figures:

Me, "George Washington," "Patrick Henry," and Anna

Me, "Thomas Jefferson," and Anna

The chance of storms was high so I did not venture out for fireworks, but instead enjoyed a low key night in.  Then on Sunday, Bons and I traveled up to Fredericksburg to see the Whitman's and enjoy a pool day and cook out!

Me and Meagan trying to be twins!

 I even made some Patriotic cookies for the occasion:

Hope everyone enjoyed a wonderful Fourth of July!

A week later....

So a week has come and gone since my last post and what a difference a week makes!  My birthday flowers are starting to show their age and apparently so am I!  Today while at the Dollar Tree, the cashier asked me how it felt to send my children off to school today.  Ummm, well no kids, so it just seemed like another day to me!

Sad sad flowers :(

I spend my weekend this weekend in Norfolk, trying to help out my sister and Josh as they navigate life with 3 kids.  I think they say it best when they say "we are outnumbered!"  Even with 3 adults, it seems there was not enough hands to go around, but it was totally worth the sleepless nights and crying to get to spend my weekend with these three beautiful boys!

Corbin

Holden

Garrett

By the time I got home on Monday, I was exhausted, but I am not one to take naps frequently.  If I do, I generally wake up more tired than before the nap, so instead of a nap, I needed to find something to fill my afternoon until bedtime, so of course, I decided to start baking!  I had promised my sister more chocolate, peanut butter oatmeal cookies last weekend but since I did not get the time last week, I figured I would bring them next weekend when I go back down there. 

Even the dough looks yummy!

Finished product!

 I also made some banana muffins and mini banana muffins (for little corbin):

And after my nautical themed shower, I was asked by a friend to make anchor cookies for a baby shower she was doing.  So I went ahead and tackled those yesterday too!

Can you find the odd one out?

I made a little "C" for my Corbin with some of the extra dough!

 So all in all, project stay awake until at least 9pm worked out, and I have lots to show for it!  Including 3.5 dozen anchor cookies, 1 dozen muffins, 2 dozen mini muffins, and 2.5 dozen oatmeal cookies!  Not too shabby for an afternoon of baking!  What did you spend your holiday weekend doing?  

P.S.--have no fear, I will be back soon with more baby pictures, cause honestly, who does not love baby pictures?

Margarita Mondays

My week started off busy and has continued that way, but it also started off with dinner with one of my favorite people, Anna Banana, at one of my favorite restaurants, Plaza!  We shared a margarita this time since last time it seems that two small margaritas were too much for us!   Since I had just made margarita cookies, it seemed fitting to bring her some for margarita Monday.  Here is a picture of the two together (and of course little Anna with them)!

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!