Monday, March 17, 2014

Family History Cookies - Mom's 80th Birthday

Last year my Mother turned 80 years old. For our family reunion we honored her and had her celebration that day. 
It was quite fun, my mother did not want a big party or anything but she just wanted a family cookbook made. In the past one of my sisters had made a family cookbook. I have used mine so much and it looks it.



Anyway for the birthday/reunion she wanted to update the family cookbook and add more recipes from our 80+ family clan. It was an event I waited for all year. My oldest sister was in charge and she came up with a great idea. To go along with the cookbook idea for our food at the party every one was assigned a dish from the cookbook that they were to bring! Such a great idea, that way you would know where to get all the recipes from the meal we enjoyed.


My assignment was the birthday cake and some cookies of course ;)

As a part of the party a part of my mothers personal history was read and I wanted to make cookies that would be memories from my mothers life. 

So those of you who are not my family who may be viewing this post not going to understand these cookies but I wanted to share them with you. I wanted them to be personal to my Mother and be something that she would cherish.

My Mothers favorite color is blue so I used that as my color theme and then did sketches with a black food color pen. And thanks goes to my husband who sketch out the memories I chose to use.


This is a picture of my Mothers father, my grandfather. I never met him , he passed away when my mother was 13. A tractor he was driving fell over on him while he was clearing land. In my Mothers history she always said she adored her father and said he was a hard working "real" cowboy.


These next cookies from left to right represent... 

  • the cabin that was her childhood home in Wyoming
  •  the "K-hill" to represent Kanab the town they have lived in for over 40 years
  •  a sleigh that was used for transportation as a kid
  • a empty box labeled Marriage which refers to a quote my mother loved which is something like this..."Marriage is an empty box. It remains empty unless you put in more than you take out."
  • and the last cookie with all the numbers on represented different numbers that are no longer current...9 children, 39 great grandchildren, 15 great grandchildren (that one has increased to 17 I think and going), 80+ is all the family that descends from my mother and father.


From LtoR: 
  • words of some of the many many events and things she has done through out her life
  • the "cry room" as church where she spent many many hours since she raised 9 children
  • SUN stands for Southern Utah News and was the name of the newspaper business that my father owned and ran for I think 30+ years
  • the ones with the logs represents the many memories my mom has of playing on a tree that had fallen over on their land. 
Wouldn't it be nice if I kids would just play all day outside on a fallen tree!



And this is a picture of my Mom from the day she was married back in 1955.


And to finish of the set, the number 80 with some brush embroidery flowers. 


So it was not all about the cookies but cake as well. We did have to feed 70+ people. I was going to do a three tiered cake but decided to just do three separate ones to make it easier. I also prefer to do buttercream cakes than fondant style, not that I don't like fondant it's just much more time consuming and frustrating for me because I need way more practice with it. 


Credit for the cake is not all mine. My awesome niece Lacee helped me do the cakes. She did most of it! So here we are with my amazing Mom, me on the left and Lacee on the right.


Another shot of the best parents in the world!


I love my mother she truly is an amazing woman and am grateful that I was able to be her daughter, I feel so blessed and loved and will always look to up to my Mom for she is the best example I could have on how to be a good Mother!

4 comments:

  1. From you Mom" thank you . . . you are a most amazing daughter and a classic cookie maker. You are more amazing than I. Love you much. From Dad: When I read this to the computer to Mom my eye got so moist I could hardly read it. love you so much sweetheart.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great write up Natalie. We do have wonderful parents. I love them!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love that lady! You did a great job on the cookies!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Don't worry dad, it just about made me cry too!
    Brant

    ReplyDelete