Valentine's Day Cookies

After being inspired by her and this article in Southern Living, I decided to try to make some Valentine's cookies of my own.  I usually do make heart cookies,  but have been wanting a more "finished" look for them.  I have never used Royal Icing before, but recently read about how versatile it is, so I thought I would give it a try.  How fun!  Here are some pictures of my results.  I am pretty pleased with how they turned out, although I haven't actually tasted them yet.

 

  

I'm also having fun experimenting with my camera!  Happy Valentine's Day!

No snow is fine, but no power?!?!

As I mentioned in my earlier post, we had a snow day, but with no snow. Fine. I had a good day with the boys. We needed the day anyway. Yada yada yada. As the day was coming to an end, I made some pizza dough so we could have homemade pizza for dinner. I was supposed to head out with some girlfriends, so the pizza would be easy. While I was making the dough, the boys were playing outside. I noticed that the wind was increasing, (we live up on a hill right near the ocean) so I called the boys in, put the dough in the oven to rise and we continued with our Valentine assembly (Must finish Valentines.) All of a sudden the lights went out! At first I thought perhaps a fuse had blown, but nope. The power was out. It was quite interesting to see the boys reactions.  They were both pretty scared, but didn’t want to show it.  We gathered candles, called the light company and sat down to make a plan.  Pizza was out as a dinner option, since I have an electric oven,  so we decided to go out to dinner, in the hopes that when we returned, the power would be back on.  We got our coats and headed to the garage.  I got in the garage and realized I had no idea how to open the door manually!  Luckily one of my neighbors came to my rescue.  Very easy really, but I just didn’t know what to do!  I am really going to have to learn more about the workings of our home, now that DH is going to be traveling as much as he is!  Anywho, we went to dinner, had a lovely time and when we got home, the power was back on!  We were all relieved to say the least!  No more thinking about where we were all going to sleep, how we were going to stay warm etc.  And, most importantly, I was able to go out as planned, thanks to my wonderful sitter, who let me just play it by ear.  All is well here at Chez Tickled Pink, DH gets home around 2 this afternoon, as opposed to 2AM, so that is grand.  Now I just need to go put away all the candles! (and finish the dishes I was just about to do when the power went off...)

Un Snow Day

Well, due to the forcast the boys school was canceled today.  But, really NO SNOW!!  I did need the day with them though.  We had a project to complete...

 

Can you guess what we are doing???

Does a closer look help???

We made these last year too.

Here is the (almost) finished product

 They still have to be attached to the heart doilies, but as far as I am concerned, the Valentine's are finished!!  Phew!  68 crayon hearts ready to be delivered tomorrow.  Assuming we have school.  And I really never assume anything.