Last night I attended a cookie exchange party. At first, I didn’t really know what to expect. I know the hostess in a roundabout way, but I haven’t seen her in years. But I decided, what the heck. I love to bake holiday goodies and I’m always up for a night out.

Wow. Was I in for a treat!

So, I baked 12 dozen treats (I made chocolate peppermint bark). But then I thought they were too small, so I added a dozen chocolate-dipped pretzels (that I also made) to each. Being new to the group and wanting to impress, I wrapped ‘em up all pretty in festive goodie bags with lovely red ribbon bows. I piled ‘em all in a box and headed out for the long drive to Debbi’s.

When I arrived, I saw that all the other guests had taken the exchange even more seriously than I did! There were several different cookie tins, mini paint cans, even chinese take-out boxes full of baking. The hostess even presented her goodies on a gilded platter topped with a red satin bow holding a large, brass cookie cutter. Oh, so very Martha! I felt somewhat cowed by the length (and expense!) the others had gone to. I’d briefly considered the mini paint cans myself, but figured the $2 price tag was too much; who spends $24 on a cookie exchange, anyway? Now I know who! Read the rest of this entry »

Well, I posted the super-cute cupcakes I made for Girl1 to take to school for her b-day treat and weren’t they just “aww, shucks“?

Well, not to let Girl2 go without special mom-baked treats, I made these puppies for the preschool Hallowe’en party.

Now, look closely…

What are they?

No, not ghosts…

…think pharaoh

…think dead pharaoh…

They’re mummies!

Now, granted, this was my inspiration:

And he has rather more icing on him than mine do, but I only had one bottle of cookie icing and I was afraid of running out. Plus I didn’t have time to pre-make scary yellow royal icing eyes, and I couldn’t find any pre-made candy eyes, so we had to use plastic googly-eyes and just warned everyone not to eat the eyes!

Anyway, they were a hit with the kiddles, and Girl2 and her new bestest preschool friend enjoyed licking off all the icing, playing with the eyes and abandoning the gingerbread man beneath. Such is life!