Catch Up!

So where have I been?  California, Michigan, Key West, Ohio...not to mention 3 batches of company here in between.  It's all rather humorous as this is the first fall in 12 years that we don't have any volleyball to chase around.  But there's no grass growing under my feet.  I have been a baking and cooking fool mind you, just not a writing fool.  So let's catch up, shall we?

Cookies are my life these days, and after taking May off for graduation, I headed back to the kitchen.  So here's a cookie roundup.

I had an amazing week of hiking in the Park City area with some amazing friends.  I made a platter of thank you cookies for our gracious hosts, and then the other Utah cookies for my hiking buddies.  The emoji is an inside joke...

A thank you for my hosts in Park City

Everyone's favorite emoji! Mr. Preppy thinks they're kisses!!!

Cookies for my Utah hiking companions!

I've written about my mom's doctor before, and all about the cookies she makes him. So I made him his very own sugar cookies.  Lucky guy, right?

Cookies for my mom's eye doctor

 I have written about my very talented sister who finally finished the never ending Hobbit movies to DVD job.  She is a producer, and a very talented one at that.  I made these cookies, just like the first ones here,  for the final wrap party.  The elvish cookies say Farewell Friends.  I even got an email from a big wig (really big)  gushing about my cookies. Made me blush.

The Hobbit of course...

 A group of young kids were heading home after a summer working at a Young Life camp in Colorado, so I made these for them.  Cool logo, wouldn't you agree? One of them was heading back to college at Alabama so I agreed to make those cookies too.  We always have a good laugh, after Oklahoma beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, I like to tuck a little Boomer Sooner cookie in her platters!

Cookies for some Young Life campers heading home

The team everyone loves to hate!

 We had a most amazing week golfing in Michigan at Arcadia Bluffs.  Our very sweet host has a mild obsession with Minions, so I had to put a few in his tasty thank you I made him!

A Minion thank you for our host in Michigan

More from that thank you box

 Let's hear it for football season!  We had company come and we headed to Oxford to cheer on the Rebs!

Ole Miss

 And did you hear?  The Memphis Tigers were rated as high as 13!  They suffered a loss to Navy, and our rating dropped, but their 15 game winning streak was really a bright spot for the city!!!

Love those Tigers!

 We know I love to golf.  I professed my addiction here, and meeting my one true love on the course here.  This fall I played in a pink tourney to raise money for breast cancer that would stay right here in my county.  A big selling point for me!

Pink Ribbon Links

Great auction items!

And I do a lot of showers, I mean a lot....  This has to be one of my favorites.  The grey was so pretty!  

a gorgeous simple grey baby shower

That's all for now.  Stay tuned, I swear there is more in my kitchen than butter, sugar and royal icing!!!  What are you waiting for?  Get in there!

Hobbit Cookies

A Sampler of My Hobbit Cookies

Yep, you read that right.  The Hobbit.  I am going to make my confession right up front, I am not a true fan.  Wait, I loved the movie, I watched it numerous times.  I was really surprised at the humor and the story.  I never read the book.  I know, I know.  I have never seen Lord of the Rings.  But I want to, I really do.  I watch movies when I am in the kitchen cooking and baking, and the Lord requires my attention.  So I am waiting for a cold rainy day, and I am going to do a marathon.  So I am a fan, I'm just not one of those fans.  You know who you are, and I admire your passion to the story, the details and the history.  I think it is all fascinating.  I just was never introduced to Tolkien in high school.  So why Hobbit cookies, you ask?

I have an amazingly talented sister who is working on the Hobbit DVD.  Yep, I know.  It is so cool.  All her jobs have been cool.  She worked on 5th Ave in NYC, she was a stunt woman on Rescue 911, she was a producer for World's Wildest Police Videos, she met her uber-talented husband on the set of The Babe, she was stunt and he was camera operator.  She has produced a few pilots that went no where, and produced an ESPN show on the best high school basketball players.  And now, she works on the Hobbit.  So she wanted cookies for a birthday and I said yes!



Thankfully there is an amazing cookier that I found over a year ago.  Mike at SemiSweetDesigns.  Talk about talent.  He designs aircraft engines or something super technical at Boeing and decorates cookies.  Not like I decorate cookies.  This is an artist who found a bag of royal icing, and creates edible art.  Last summer he posted a tutorial on the Hobbit Door Cookies, in anticipation of the movie release.  When Lori started working for the Hobbit I knew those cookies would come in handy.  Did they ever.  I also emailed Mike and he was so nice about answering my crazy Hobbit questions.  So here is my collection.

The key, which is an important part of the movie.  The sword of course.  And the Hobbit door, which Mike and Lori suggested I put the Rune on, and I did.  As I watched the movie I was very focused on the door, and fell in love with the interior of that door.  The scrolled iron work was gorgeous,  I want that door.  And of course I had to put my favorite Tolkien saying on a cookie, Not all who wander, are lost.  Profound, really.  And lastly I wrote Happy Birthday in Elvish.  I found a Hobbit Rune Generator.  Now as I said, I am very new to this.  I had my choice of 3 different Runes, and I chose Elvish Tengwar like Gandolf uses at the end of the Third Age.  I have no idea what I just said, but the lettering was so pretty...I chose that one!

Honestly, about the most fun I have ever had making cookies.  I know my sister is so excited to get them, and she will shower me with same flattery I used on her.  We're good like that.  She is the business, I am the creative.  We are a great team.  So, I am so excited for the next movie.  Really.  I have midnight showing plans for sure.  And cookies will follow, no doubt!  So what are you waiting for?  Get in there and create!!!