Did you say Tyra Banks?? Birthday Cookies

I have a funny story about this set of cookies. This may be a little long but it needs to be to explain my dinginess!!

I was at home and I was actually working on a set of cookies to help out a friend for cookie con 2014 when my cell phone rang. It was my good friend who lives in Minnesota we have been friends for over a decade and I never want to pass an opportunity to catch up with her so I answered the call and continued working on the cookies while we chatted. I was not sure if I was distracted or if it was the reliable cell phone connection we had but I obviously did not comprehend what she asked me to do.

We played catch up for a bit and then she told me she wanted to place a couple of cookies orders. She told me about a girl that was a neighbor and a great athlete and she wanted to do something for her and she said another name and said that she was in her husbands Harvard class and they were going to go visit her around her birthday and wanted to give her some cookies. I told her to go ahead and just send me an email with all the details of the designs she wanted and such and we ended our call.

A week later I got the email from her and I read through the first order...... it went something like this 

For Elizabeth E....

• Blue, white, red are some of High School and future college colors. #19
• Soccer-she won Ms. MN Soccer 
• Track-she broke long standing (20+ yr) record in 400 meters at Minnetonka high school

1 Doz, you can decide how to decorate! 

Then I read the second order on the list

For Tyra Banks, (i'm thinking oh they know someone named Tyra banks, that's interesting...I continue to read) 

• Favorite word/theme: *SMIZE, 
• Favorite color: *yellow, 
• She loves: designer furniture, new food, Mexican food ;) 
• spending time at the spa
• Likes creative make-up artistry 
• Graduated from Harvard, She runs America's Top Model, 

(WAIT what did I just read, is she really talking about Tyra Banks..I keep reading) 

I think a *picture of her would be fun...hope that gives you some ideas...let me know if you need more (I starred the things I would for sure like) 2 Doz sent as close to 8th of April, as possible. Thank you so much!   Did you enjoy your convention? Xoxo thanks for the visit last week! 

____________________

I immediately yell for my husband to come to the computer and I read it to him. Asking him do you think this is for real. So then I recall seeing a picture of my friends husband on his facebook feed  that he posted of a group of people and remember maybe that one of them could have been Tyra Banks. So I go check out his page and sure enough the woman in the picture was indeed Tyra Banks I just did not realize it when he posted the picture.  

I am in shock and I call my friend immediately and no answer I leave a message, I then text her to call me and also send her an email. I needed to confirm that this cookie order was indeed for Tyra Banks!!!

Some pics of Tyra

She was not able to call me back until the next day and we had a good laugh and my dinginess when she first called me. She said that she was a little surprised that I did not say anything or have any kind of reaction when she mentioned that she wanted me to make some cookies for their friend Tyra Banks for her birthday.

Her Catch Phrase SMIZE

I obviously did not hear the name correctly when we were on the phone the first time and after I talked to her more about how they knew her and found out the Tyra was in the same Masters program with her husband at Harvard and my friend had met her before and said she was a such nice and wonderful person and they wanted to give her something unique for her birthday, and she thought my cookies would fit the bill.

After the call was over I was overcome with fear that the cookies I would make would be awful and Tyra would hate them but after I got them finished I was pleased with them and I am happy to report that when she got the cookies Tyra was so pleased with them and just could not believe that there were pictures of her on cookies. Funny hu, Tyra sees her face one magazine and TV all the time but never on a cookie.

Harvard Graduate

I asked my friend if possible I would love it if she could get a picture of Tyra holding my cookies but I understood if that wasn't possible.

She did not get a picture of Tyra holding my cookies and so you don't have to believe a thing I have said..............BUT it is true!!!

Love of Mexican Food

Spending time at the Spa

Love of Makeup Artistry

The whole Cookie Line up!!

Sooooo this is probably the closest claim to fame I have ..... I made cookies for TYRA BANKS!!!

Thanks to my awesome friend Evonne, for trusting me that I could do this for one special woman!

Annette Southern Belle nurse! Birthday Cookies

I have not been really good at posting on this blog this year. These cookies were in fact made clear back in January!! My friend wanted some birthday cookies for her friend Annette.

Like I normally do, I like to make sets that include their hobbies and likes.
Annette is a awesome nurse.

The magnolia is her favorite flower.

She loves to bake.

And the whole crew together!

Birthday Cookies featuring The Howard!

My friend wanted to send some cookies to a friend for his birthday. She wanted to highlight some of his hobbies and likes. So this is what you come with when your friend is a.....

Doctor....

loves to go four-wheeling.......

also is a big time snowboarder............

and of course is a big fan of Howard Stern!! This was my first request for Howard Stern cookies and probably the only one I will get. ;)

I hear that he was super stoked about the cookies and was in love with the Howard Stern face and hand.

Retro snowflake stencil from Artfully Designed Co. and the quatrefoil stencil from Salsa Stencils.

The Busiest Man I Know - Matt - Apple Mac cookies

I am going to state first off, that I think this is my favorite set of cookies I have made all year!! I like the colors, and I think they came out pretty cute.

Matt has the last birthday of the calendar year of my siblings and their spouses, so this post is the last birthday cookies for 2013. 

Matt is the second oldest and oldest boy of my family, he is about 14-15 years older than me so needless to say I don't really remember much of Matt until he was married and raising his own family.

I have many many memories of Matt so I find it hard to single it out to a best memory. I have so many memories because he and his family moved back to my home town over 20+ years ago. So I got to spend my youth around him and his family. 

I got to spend a lot of time with Matt as a teenager and young adult because I worked for him in his photo business for many years. I spent many many days by his side developing and printing pictures, and he was probably the best boss I ever had. Who else gets to say that you can boss your boss around, and still have a job. I can be kinda bossy and Matt can have way too many things on his plate all the time. So from time to time and I had to keep him on track of what he needed to be doing. I learned how to work hard from him and he taught me many great business skills. 

My brother has been wearing a tie more days than not in the past. I have no idea, something like 10-15 years. He was called as a Bishop (kinda like a pastor) in his local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints congregation and had that calling for 5 years, and then he was called as a Stake President (takes care of 8 congregations in the town) after that, and has been serving in that calling for many years so he is always going to church meetings therefore always wearing a tie. 

When I was gathering ideas of what cookies I should do for his cookies I sent an email to my sister in law and his 3 daughters for suggestions. They quickly responded and it was really fun to read them going back and forth about the many memories they have of their dad. One daughter mentioned him dancing all the time, trying to show off his awesome dance moves and he is known for dancing in their many home videos. So I knew I had to do a cookie with a dancing man on it. The above cookie is my favorite cookie of the bunch and my favorite cookie all year. :) I love the grey on the yellow and the stenciled back ground.

My brother Matt could never be accused of being lazy! That man is always doing something, he has a million ideas, he can fix almost anything, draw up house plans, build houses, fix cars, fix photo machines, is a photographer, lover of technology, the list can go on and on. He is constantly doing things to improve his community and has lately been working with his town of Kanab on driving more visitors to visit Kanab, and has been into hiking and off-roading for the past few years. He played a big part in pulling together an amazing event, Grand to Grand that had people from all over the world participating in it and will be doing it again in 2014. It is a foot race of 267 miles starting at the Grand Canyon and ending at the Grand Staircase. This is a little Youtube video on it, click here.

I mentioned that he loves technology and specifically Apple technology, he has always been a faithful follower of Mac's and the Apple world, so I had to do some Mac Apple cookies.

And of course photography has been in his blood since he was a teenager, he has always been taking pictures. When he moved to Kanab he bought a photo developing business and still owns a photo business today. He followed in my dad's footsteps of taking pictures for the Newspaper my father owned and then he became part owner of it, and he has been taking many pictures for all events, wedding, family, sports, school pictures you name it!! Just one of his many talents!!

Another talent he has is eggs, yes that is right he is a master of cooking eggs. I am not sure if that is all kinds of ways to cook eggs, but I remember him being able to make perfectly cooked scrambled eggs and he was able to do that in the microwave. His kids said he is the master of cooking eggs! I love these fried egg cookies they look so real.

And here is the whole gang together. I did not cover all of Matt's many talents and hobbies, but just a few. I am glad I can call Matt my older brother. I hope that he had a great birthday! Happy Birthday.

The Shark Whisperer - Nina

Someone is really behind!! Who could that be! Me of course.

My sister-in-laws birthday was last month, she was out of state on her actual birthday, so I got an extra week and I delivered her cookies two weeks ago but I am just now getting to the post.

Nina is married to my older brother Robert. They have seven children!! Yes 7. So right there you have to know that Nina has to be an amazing woman with tons of patience and love to raise seven children. I have a very, VERY hard time with only two. :)

I emailed my brother and he told me some interesting facts about Nina. He said that when she swam in high school her nick name was "the shark wrestler". Sounds like she was a pretty awesome swimmer! So I decided to try out Sugarbelles version of easy sharks and it was a great idea, very simple and still really cute.

But this swimsuit cookie should have me committed. Since Nina was out of state I decided to message her oldest daughter to find out for sure what high school she attended. Well I was told it was Pleasant Grove, but my mind chose to read American Fork, yes it is the town next to PG, but they are in no way similar. And to make things worse when I gave the cookies to Nina and they asked what the A was for and I told them they just laughed and I blamed it on my niece for telling me the wrong school. Not until I reread the message did I realize that I am totally losing my mind. I immediately apologized to Nina and my niece over and over again. I'm only 41, I can on imagine how bad my mind will be in 20 years! :)

Nina enjoys reading so I found some clip-art of a reading silhouette. Yes my SIL is not a girl from the 1950's, but I thought it was cute.

Another love of Nina is of course her family. She has a lot to love with a husband, 4 sons and 3 daughters. But really she has much more to love now that three of her children are now married and Nina will become a Grandmother any day now. So this family of 9 will actually be accurate as a family 13!!

My brother also shared an inside joke with me. It had to do with them playing "Catch Phrase" and Nina yelling out "BraveHeart". I tried to make these cookies representing the Mel Gibson flick, but most people guessed that it looked like a dog!

This next cookie represents another love of Nina's as well, as my memory of her. Nina likes to talk there was supposed to be another cookie with this one showing two woman sitting at a table visiting. But when I did it, it just looked awful so my hubby and I just split it and ate it ourselves. ;)
When I would go visit Nina and her family while they lived in South Carolina there were many times where we just sat around the table and visited for a long time. I remember talking about all kinds of things from herbs and essential oils, to chiropractors and Harry Potter. I always enjoyed my visits and am grateful for Nina for being so welcoming and loving to her SIL!!

The whole group together wishing that Nina had a very Happy Birthday!

Mr. Tall Tale = Robert

A week ago was my older brothers birthday. Robert is fourth child to my parents and not even sure how much older he is than me maybe 12 years? He and his lovely wife have 7 children of their own, that is right 7 children... Terence, Rhen, Acacia, Dallin, Angela, Joe & Noelle.

My brother has a couple of jobs to keep him busy. He has a full time job and then he also drives bus for the local transportation company here in Salt Lake City. It's a good gig I think, he drives the bus that takes him two and from his full time job, so he gets paid to make his commute! Smart!

I put in a couple of sports cookies in his box. The football one to represent his many years of supporting his two oldest boys quest in sports which started when they were in middle school and went through their college years!  I put in a baseball as well because I think that is the sport that he likes more. Maybe I am wrong but I think he enjoyed playing baseball when he was younger.

His wife says he likes to do recreational activities but his favorite is fishing so some fishing cookies were in order.

These next cookies I was not sure how I could cookify them. Robert is a big story teller. Our family loves to hear stories of the older kids and their shenanigans! You can get the stories from my other two oldest brothers but if you want to hear an embellished one then you need to have Robert tell it!  So when I asked Nina, Robert's wife, to share some of his hobbies and interests she mentioned that his children always thought he was in the Navy! He wasn't in the Navy but he use to always tell them stories and he would start with "When I was in the Navy...."
That totally cracked me up and I thought it was perfect way to show in a cookie that he is a great story teller!

Now these cookies I am not even sure if he knows what these next cookies represent. These represent my fondest childhood memory of my brother Robert. These cookies are titled "Little People".

When we were younger two of my siblings and I, (McKay & Kristine) would bug Robert to play games with us. The one we loved was a game of not getting caught. Robert must have been a good sport and amused his much younger siblings. He would be the "Giant" and we were the "little people" my memory is a little foggy as to how it exactly worked. I think there were a couple of versions. One is that he would be on the couch and we would run around by him trying to not get caught. Pretty sure if we got caught then tickling was then endured. :) 

I now sort of play a version of this with my own children but we call it Tickle Monster. It is a happy childhood memory I have of Robert and I hope that my children will have happy memories of my version as well. :)

Happy Birthday Robert, I hope you had a great day!!

Shooting, lobbing, inverting with a side of Onion! - Scott

Scott is my brother in law and is married to my sister Kanani. The have been married 20+ years. ( I really have no idea the number) They are the proud parents to 5 children. Brady, Kelsey, McKenzie, Zachery and Sydnee.

When I was still at home I knew when Scott and Kanani would be coming home for a visit because my mother would be up late filling the house with the aroma of baking cinnamon rolls! We always look forward to their visits cause we knew we were in for a treat! By treat I mean their visit of course. :)

I thought about making cinnamon roll cookies, but I made those before for my niece Syd.

I found out something new about Scott, he has been into shooting guns lately and he really like to do target shooting so I believe that is called Trap. Here is my rendition of Trap shooting.

My sisters FB photo albums are full of their family on the water. They love the water, they love to swim, water ski and wake board. Scott enjoys the wake boarding. The grey one I did first and my icing was too thick so that icing guy did not look so good that why he is out of focus. :)

Scott is very athletic and enjoys many sports. He has always loved tennis and I think he was on a team or two in high school or college. But hey I could be just totally making that up. :)  I didn't come up with this technique but I had not seen it done on a tennis ball cookie before but I am sure it has, so no I am not claiming that I came up with it first. :)

He also is a number one supporter of his children's soccer. He has coached his children's teams for 15+ years! That is dedication.

And I decided to through in some onion cookies. Why? you are asking? Well, I am not really sharing a specific memory that I have of Scott but instead something that reminds me of Scott...... Yes and that is an onion!
No it is not because he has onion breath but I remember when my sister got engaged to him one of  the things we found out about him was that he LOVED onion sandwiches!!
Onion sandwiches!
I had never ever heard of an onion sandwich or of someone ever eating one! I believe it is raw onion that he likes. I now could totally be on board for a sauteed onion sandwich but raw, not sure if I would love that. So anyway when I think of things that remind me of my brother in law onion sandwiches is always one... oh and he looks a lot like Tim Allen!

Hope he had a wonderful birthday and that he enjoyed his ONION cookies!!

Breaking Bad / Justin Timberlake

I am part of a little cookie community and they had a sign up to give cookies to each other on our birthdays. I got to do cookies for Lucky Penny! Her birthday was earlier this week. When you sign up you list things you like, your hobbies, and favorite color.

Her favorite color is purple and even though she warned that purple is a big pain in the but to make I decided I would go for it. I have not made purple much before and believe me it was a big pain in the ..... my dark shade just ended up looking black!



Her favorite flower is a lilac, so this is my version.



I contacted her friend Jill to find out some other details about her than what she had listed and found out that she loves JT (Justin Timberlake) pretty sure that he has a few fans!



Another love is tennis. I decided to give my tennis ball a little textured look like they actually have.



And it was her birthday so of course we needed some cake!



Another gem I learned from her friend was that she was a big fan of the TV show Breaking Bad, I have not seen it but I might just have to check it out to see what all the hype is about.



She is a Cubs fan and yest these are not their colors but I was using a certain color scheme. :)



I sure hope that Penny had the most amazing birthday!!

Digging holes, hiking hills, racing to a bowl of ice cream! = Brant

Brant is my big little brother! He was born on the same day as my other brother Alvin that I posted about just a couple of days ago.

Brant is married to Jana and has three wonderful children Ria, Heath and Bennett. As I write more and more of these posts I realize even more how awesome my family is. How many times can I say how wonderful they are.

I have lots of memories that I could share about Brant although he is not the closest sibling to be in age, I was closer to him growing up than to any other siblings. My two sibs just older than me were really close so me and Brant spent lots of time together. I think we had some great times together. I made these cookies to represent the Chevy S10 that I drove a lot during high school. We would go to movies together and back in the summer of 1990 just after I graduated from high school Brant and I went to Days of Thunder together. If you did not see that flick it was the one with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman and it was about race car driver. Well there was some good car racing action in it and I vividly remember after leaving the movie house little bro and I hopped into the truck, turned up the music, revved up the engine, shifted gears quickly and sped the whole 3 blocks home!!! :) Pretty wild of us right?? :)



Brant played football in high school then went on to play college football and still to this day he is a major footbal fanatic! He loves pretty much all sports and he married the right woman, she is such a sports fan as well. They were made for each other!



Brant LOVES him some ice-cream. His wife thinks it is a Brown trait and maybe it is but maybe he is just like his old man. My dad loves ice-cream and my Mom always always has some in the freezer!



Brant also loves to go hiking and he loves to take his family on hikes. So he eats his bowl of ice cream and then works it off on the hike, he has got the right idea.



This next cookies represent his love of doing yard work. Now this is something I did not know about because growing up he sure wasn't doing yard work, well at least I didn't notice it. But his wife assured me that he quite the master of his lawn and has done amazing work around their home, she said he even dug a hole for their trampoline. I wish he would do that for me! To bad he lives 8 hours away from me.



I love you tons Brant and loved being our own little family with Mom and Dad for a few years. I loved our wrestling matches on Sundays, going to the movies, and listening to Depeche Mode and OMD together.

Happy Birthday little brother!