souvenir

i miss dallas shopping. so much. when i was there last week, i picked up these hot little shoes at urban outfitters for $9.99. no, really. $9.99!! love, love, love digging in the sale section. now i don't have to feel guilty for buying teal suede and silver hotness while my big kids were at home with the husband. 

sugar cookies

love these sugar cookies.  nice and soft, with a good vanilla flavor (i use 2 teaspoons of mexican vanilla instead of 1 1/2). we made some for valentine's day and topped them with buttercream frosting. royal icing is so pretty, but buttercream tastes so much better and if you thin it out just a bit you can have a nice smooth finish. top them with sprinkles or sanding sugar if you're having a hard time smoothing out the frosting, it will hide imperfections. if you're not a big sugar cookie baker, here are a couple of tips: 

 1. roll out your dough between layers of plastic wrap. this prevents having to use extra flour and making your cookies tough. it's also much easier to clean up. 

2. i always bake my cookies (all kinds) on parchment paper. it keeps them from sticking and then you don't have to wash your cookie sheets. parchment paper is one of those kitchen items that not everyone uses, but everyone should. 

3. to get bright, vibrantly colored frosting, always use gel colors. along with great color, they won't thin out the frosting like food coloring drops. you can find these at walmart or michael's down that great baking isle. i bought a box with eight colors and it's all i need. this will cost about $10, so wait for that 40% coupon!

4. while you're down that baking isle, get a small metal spatula for icing your cookies (about $4). don't use a butter knife; you really can't get the same results. 

Buttercream frosting

1 stick butter, softened

1 lb. powdered sugar (3  3/4 cups)

1/4 c. milk (plus more to thin) 

1 t. vanilla

mix together with whisk attachment. add more milk as needed. 

 

7 years

my mom's wedding rings and perfume. 

valentine's day is always a little bittersweet for me. my mother died 7 years ago today and i still miss her everyday. my mom had been sick for all of my life -- and then some -- but it never really mattered to me. i was thinking of this earlier this week when it had been a rough day around here. i was impatient with my kids and my house was a mess. i was feeling so discouraged and thinking that my poor kids probably wished that they had a more patient mom -- someone more fun, more organized, less likely to yell and more likely to run around and play. then i remembered being 8 years old and making a brownie mix with my mom. she was laying on the couch, covered in blankets and directing me as i stood on a chair in the kitchen. i felt so important. just as i love my mom with all of her frailties, so do my kids love me with mine. and because of that, it makes me want to work to turn those weaknesses into strengths. because that kind of love is worth it. 

i might have a problem...

i have zero self-control when it comes to buying lip glosses. can you tell? if i ever got mugged, i would probably just hand over my wallet because all the beauty products i'm lugging around are worth more than all my credit cards combined. my current fav? bath & body's liplicious in pineapple juice. shimmery gold and crazy delicious. 

a nod to nie

love nie's blog. and her silhouettes of her family. i had silhouettes of my kids done at disneyland last year -- but i hated the frame and the cheesy disneyland paper it was done on. so i pulled out my cart of scrappin' crap to do a craftastic remod. i used an oval cutter to trim around the disneyland logo and mounted the silhouettes on bright, textured cardstock. i picked up the frames at the aaron brothers frame sale and viola! new decor for my dining room. i love it. 

also, this project was totally cost effective. i got the frames on sale, and when you add in the cost of a week at disneyland and the hundreds of dollars of under-utilized scrapbook gear, these babies came in at a couple thousand apiece. nice. 

just like new

we own an obscene number of disney movies. and like all babysitters (did i just say that?), sometimes they take a beating. enter disney's replacement program. if you're dvd's are scratched, just send 'em in with a check for $6.95 per movie, and they'll replace it. click here to get the address. 

p.s. as i type this, my 7 1/2 year old son is wielding a light saber and yelling at the tv, "for narnia! and for aslan!!" 

thank you, disney. thank you.