Micah and Christine

A few weeks ago I was making yet another attempt at cleaning out my blog reader. (Does anyone else do this? Get hopelessly behind on blog reading?) Then I began to read about the Christmas Cookie weekend Pioneer Woman hosted. Oh my goodness... doesn't that look fun?

So I spent a bunch of time reading at the website Bake at 350. Don't you love the strawberry cookies? Or the hot dog and beer ones? 

I have a habit of holding "themed" gatherings. When people come over we often invite people from different parts of our lives, so since they don't know each other, I feel like it's a good idea to have something everyone can do together. After looking at all of those beautiful cookies, I decided to have a cookie-decorating party. 

I went to the kitchen store at University Mall and bought several cookie cutters. I then took about 5 hours the night before people came over baking cookies. I had actually never made cutout cookies in my adult life, so it was an adventure. I made three batches of the Vanilla-Almond sugar cookie recipe from Bake at 350 and wound up with 5 dozen cookies. 

Yep, I made 60 cookies. And we had 3 people come over. So the next day we had 5 adults decorating 60 cookies. Too many! I have a problem... I always get scared that we will run out of stuff, so I make way too much. Anyway, I bought a variety of cookie decorating items and made a batch of royal icing. 

Here's a few of the cookies: Can you spot the Marge Simpson reindeer? 

Then came the worst part- we had so much extra frosting and we were leaving for the holidays the next morning. We had no idea if the frosting would be good later, so...

The cookies were yummy but next time I will make fewer.