love

Well, Valentines Day has come and gone, but not without a fun little project in the Lay household. I got a free subscription to Southern Living magazine, and when the February issue arrived, Hank immediately spotted the cookies on the cover and asked, "Mommy, can we EAT those sometime???" I explained to him that to be able to eat them we would have to first make them...and that is when the seed was planted in my mind. I knew it would be a monumental task..and quite messy, but that's the stuff memories are made of!

So Hank and I took one day to make the cookies while Landry and Tucker napped. The cookies themselves are o.k. on their own, but much yummier with the icing! The next day my friend Michelle came over to help me decorate...I saved a few for Hank and Landry to decorate when they got up from their naps.

I think the favorite part of decorating for both Hank and Landry was eating the sprinkles...by the spoonful. Nothing like a Valentines Day sugar rush. I think my favorite part of the whole ordeal was watching Hank decide who to decorate his cookies for. Upon my recommendation, he decorate the first one for his daddy. Then, he decided to decorate his second one for Landry. Then, as he decorated his third one, he said, "Mommy, I want this one to be for one of my friends. I want this to be for Walker and Miller - and in the morning we can take it to their house!" What a way to melt a mommy's heart! (For those of you who don't know Walker and Miller were some of Hank's best buddies back in Tyler). I explained to him that Walker and Miller lived too far away to deliver it the next morning, but he still decorated one for them. We were going to try to send it with someone to them or mail it to them, but considering the cookies are over a week old and still haven't been delivered, maybe we'll settle with emailing them a picture of the cookie.

And for those of you who are curious, our cookie making and decorating adventure turned out to be a fun and successful experiment. I loved the idea the magazine gave of cutting holes in the cookies before you bake them in order to be able to tie them onto a piece of paper, making them an edible valentine!

If you don't live close enough to have been hand-delivered one of our edible valentines, here is one just for you!