THE BIG MOMENT!

AHH!! Finally! The moment we've all been waiting for! Well, maybe not you all, but I know I sure have.  I waited 12 long months and this past Friday finally, FINALLY the day had arrived!  I could not sleep a wink all night (obviously).  I was out of bed at the crack of dawn, despite the fact that his ceremony was not until 5 that evening.  The call arrived around 10:00 am letting me know my husband's flight had landed safely and the soldiers were processing and the ceremony would be on time.   I began decorating the yard and truck.  Next I made the bed, finished cleaning the house, gave the boy a bath, got myself prettied up, and 3 hours prior to the start of the ceremony, I headed to the hanger.  Yes, I was a bit eager!  Despite the fact I was 2 and a half hours early, I was not the first to arrive, so I didn't feel too silly.  I sat down in the very front of the bleachers and assumed the waiting position.  Soon after, my hubby called, "You might want to get there a little early" he says. HAHA.  I inform him that I'm already there and waiting in the front.  A couple hours pass and the announcement is made, the room goes silent and the doors slowly rise.  It was a breathtaking moment.  I nearly burst into tears, the feeling in that hangar at that moment was indescribable.  The stands roared with applause and screams.  It was one of the happiest moments of my life.  The soldiers marched in.  I looked around, there was at least 200.  He could be anywhere. I knew I'd never find him in that crowd.  I looked up and down the isles of soldiers.  Then suddenly, I feel eyes peering at me...eyes of a soldier standing directly in front of me.  Could it be? Could my man be RIGHT in front of me?  It looked like my husband, but skinnier.  Shamefully, I had to get out my lens and zoom in on his name tape. Sure enough, that skinny soldier in front of me belonged to me!  Seconds later they released the formation and this man took a few short steps forward.  We didn't move at first, we just starred and smiled.  Finally, I jumped up for my hug and it was the best hug ever!  Everything was so exciting at that point.  There were tears and laughter and hugs all around...and yet it was so quiet, because we were in our own little world, wrapped up in each other.  I couldn't sleep at all that night, I couldn't believe he was home...I just wanted to lay on his chest and take him in.  I hate that so many people take the little things like that for granted.  At the same time, I feel sorry for civilians.  A redeployment is a truly unique and amazing experience.  I got to fall in love with my husband again.

A Soldier's Welcome

I have been waiting to decorate our home and truck for weeks!  I bought the window paint months ago!  I made a wreath for our door for just this occasion!  Finally, homecoming day had arrived! I was up at the crack of dawn placing little flags along the walkway.  I used my son's sidewalk chalk to write "Welcome Back Daddy" along the path.  I hung a patriotic bunting and welcome home sign along the fence.  Here's a taste of what our home and truck looked like on that beautiful homecoming day...

A little frosting on the cake

More preparations are underway for the hubs homecoming!  I've had my nails done and did my own toes this week.  Still need to apply some sunless tanner to the legs (redheads don't exactly tan naturally).  I've also made some nice hair enhancements this week.  2 nights ago, one of my army-sisters, Lindzy, came over to turn me over to the dark-side, or maybe it's the light side??  Well, either way, I've got some blond streaks in my hair...here's a little eye candy from our strange hair coloring fun.

Wake me up when September Ends...

First, let me apologize for the lack of posts recently.  I like to blog at least once a week, but I just haven't had the time.  Reason #1, I've had 3 photo sessions and a wedding in the past 2 weeks...it's kept me busy to say the least.  Reason #2, the hubs is coming home VERY soon!! I have soo much to do! I need to finish organizing and decorating the house.  I have a few secret projects I'm working on...can't wait to show them off!  I've got some house work to do...just so much going on!! My head is spinning!  Here's a recap of what I've been doing in anticipation of the hubs return...

Upper Left: Our first date outfit (Skirt, top & necklace: maurices, wristlet: Coach)~Still need shoes!
Upper Right: A peak at my homecoming outfit (Dress: TJ MAXX, Sweater: Charlotte Russe, Necklace: A gift from the hubby for our first Christmas-It matches almost perfectly, just doesn't look like it in the photo, Shoes ((not shown)): DEB, Bracelet ((not shown)): Pandora (my husband mailed the bracelet & charms throughout the deployment)
Lower Left: A tutu made for a friend's daughter for her daddy's homecoming
Lower Right: Our boy got his hair cut like daddy's at the barber on post.  Notice the scar on the forehead?  Apparently, he wanted a scar like daddy's too. He got into a fight with the coffee table a few weeks ago...he lost.  It's slowly healing.

**I also purchased my homecoming ball dress several weeks ago, but again, it's been keep TOP SECRET!**


I have lots more going on, but I don't really want to show much...the hubby still has access to this blog and I have a lot of things I want to keep a secret until he returns.  But I'll be in posting overload in a couple weeks...promise!

Pop-Tarts & Kool-Aid

I love Pop-Tarts & Kool-Aid.  When it comes to Kool-Aid, I like them all, but I LOOOOVEEE the Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade.  When I found this at the commissary is the instant containers, I hoarded every last one up.  I'm a bit less particular when it comes to my Pop-Tarts.  I like chocolate, strawberry, cherry, cookie dough, chocolate & vanilla, etc.  I love them all & so does my husband.  He actually requested a box of Pop-Tarts with every care package.  I did my best to fulfill this demand.  In fact, this family loves Pop-Tarts so much, I ordered him a $22 box of Pop-Tarts for his Welcome Home care package.  But I'll explain that at a later date. At any given date, my cabinet is full of Pop-Tarts & Kool-Aid.  A few days ago, when searching for a meal to prepare, I noticed my Pop-Tarts & Kool-Aid survival kit and thought, HMM...Clearly, I love Pop-Tarts & Kool-Aid.  What a great title for a blog post!  However can I tie this in??  I've got it! It's a stretch, but here goes...

Yes, I love Pop-Tarts & Kool-Aid, but what do I not love??  COOKIES! At the moment, I LOATHE cookies.  Cookies can bite me for once.  I used to be normal, I used to love cookies like my Pop-Tarts & Kool-Aid.  Macadamia cookies, sugar cookies, oatmeal cookies, peanut butter cookies...cookies in general made me happy.  But not any more!  Well, at least not for another month or so.  As I stated in a previous post, my husband requested one final care package filled with nothing but COOKIES.  Filling a large care package solely with cookies takes a lot of dough (that's a total homonym).  It was $46 for all the ingredients to pull of not 7 dozen cookies like I had previously thought, but 118 cookies!! It was a result of 1 batch of macadamia nut cookies, 1 batch of peanut butter cookies, one batch of Butterfinger cookies, one batch of turtle cookies (like the chocolate), and 6 batches of S'more cookies.  I didn't have the graham crackers, so I used more butterfingers.  After all the cookies were baked, I couldn't even fit them in the box.  I didn't have enough tupperware or zip-locks.  I somehow managed to make it work. At the moment, I am SICK of cookies.  My husband's company better be thankful! 

On the up-side, tough-boxes are starting to arrive this week...

One of the hubs' signs arrived this week too!!  I made a vague attempt to blur the name on here for security reasons.

I designed my son's Welcome Home shirt this week and it has been ordered.  The back has daddy's name on it as well...

Daddy will be here before we know it!! I can't freaking wait! :D

No Bones About It

When picking up some scrapbook paper for one of my boxes a few weeks ago, my son was adamant that we purchase daddy some dinosaur paper.  If there's one thing my son loves, it's dinos.  So I didn't argue...I figured it wouldn't be hard to make a dino box and my son could have a little fun picking out the items for the box.  Unfortunately, my son was a little selfish this go-round.  He decided he wanted to keep just about everything we bought for the box.  I compromised and let him keep his own goodie bag.  The box this week contained only goodie bags...nothing specific for the hubby, although he did get his own heart adorned goodie bag which contained a few extra snacks and brownies.  The 6 bags contained dinosaur oatmeal, poprocks, fruity pebble snack bars and a mini dino.  They also contained some non-dinosaur related snacks like fruit snacks, bottle drink mix, and mini pop-tarts.  They also contained home-made brownies...Details on those are below this set of photos of the box.

Now onto the brownies :D...

I was so excited when I found a dinosaur cookie cutter a few months ago (cookie cutters around here are like...I unno something rare, I'm out of analogies for the night).  Anyhow so I bought this dino cookie cutter, but it was large...very large, it'd be ridiculous to expect a cookie that big to make it intact to Afghanistan.  So instead, I found a small bone cookie cutter last weekend at Hobby Lobby...that's a future blog :)  Anyhow, so I used the bone cutter hoping people wouldn't confuse it for it's intended purpose of a dog bone. Think archeology not "bark"eology (sorry, that was lame, I'm tired).  Well, instead of making my same-ole sugar cookies this week, I decided to mix it up and treat the fellas to some brownies...plus I'm in no mood to decorate because we got a new puppy. Yeah, you heard that right...again, future blog!  Well, anyhow, here's the good part...

Star Wars Movie Night I Guess...

So with the cut off date for overseas mail arriving within the next few weeks, I'm pressed for time to get these last 6 boxes out.  The way it's looking, I've got 6 boxes to send in a little over 2 weeks...yeah, that's crazy.  I'm probably going to press my luck and send them past the cut off date...it's no biggie, I'm not sending anything valuable anyhow.  With that in mind I was in a panic Monday night. Basically, if I wanted to get 2 out this week, I needed to get at least the first one out by Tuesday. Unfortunately, I was a bit unprepared this week...I didn't seem to have enough items for 1 box. I had half a Movie Night box filled and half of a Star Wars box filled.  So I figured, what the hey, I'll combine them...It's a Star Wars Movie night now I guess.  It cuts out one box and saved me from running to the store at 2 AM.  I didn't make cute cookies because I was up til 4 AM working on this box as it was.  However, I did make some yummy homemade snickerdoodles.  I'm fairly certain the guys prefer taste over cuteness anyhow.

 

This box contained 6 gift bags each filled with snicker-doodle cookies, a star wars pez dispenser,  a bag of popcorn, and star wars gummies.  I also tossed in some light sticks and a few other candies.  I sealed the popcorn goodie bags with star wars stickers.  Sadly, I didn't have a star wars movie to throw in so they could have a star wars movie night, but I'm sure they'll come up with something.

Picking at my brain

I love love love this box :)  You can read all about the details leading up to the box in the 2 posts that follow below this one.

Box Contents: The Zombie Survival Guide book, The Zombie Survival Guide playing cards, Rob Zombie t-shirt, Rob Zombie CD, a rubber brain and 5 goodie bags for disbursement. 

Goodie Bag Contents: Rubber fingers, candy eyeballs, mini candy bars, zombie fingers, and chocolate chip peanut butter cookies.  Each bag was sealed with a zombie button.

I don't know whom my husband passes these goodie bags out to but he says they all get a kick out of them. I sure hope so. Adding the goodie bags makes for a lot of extra effort.  But if I know they are going to appreciative soldiers, it's all worth it.

Finger Foods

Tonight I made up 2 batches of cookies, one for taste, one for fun.  The first batch I'll tell you about is the batch for show. They are just your basic run of the mill sugar cookies with some food coloring and a pumpkin seed.  They are zombie fingers.  Yes, I know there's still 2 months before halloween, but I'm not sending my husband a halloween themed box, so back off!  I am sending him a zombie themed box :)  My husband oddly has a major interest in the idea of zombies taking over the earth one day...it's a joke people, don't get your panties in a bunch.  Anyhow, so in honor of my husbands love for the zombie scene, I've centered this week's box around zombies (Jeez, I know I already said it, I'm just making sure you're paying attention.)  Anyhow, when doing a google search for zombie cookies I came across the idea of green fingers (yes, I know zombies don't have green fingers, witches do...big deal, they looked cool.)  Anyhow, so I figured the idea was pretty simple and quick so I went with it.  The recipe called for pistachios but I thought pumpkin seeds looked more like finger nails (yes I'm aware they wont taste that good on sugar cookies, but who cares, they are for show anyhow...jeez you are so rude tonight).  Well, like I said the recipe was pretty cut and dry, but if you really must have a step by step (mr. pushy pants), here ya go...

Step 1: Add green coloring to your sugar cookie mix

Step 2: Roll into log shapes, add knuckles by using a toothpick, press seeds in for fingernails and bake.

Take out of oven.  Turn the tables for once and eat a zombie :) 

My son wouldn't eat one, he said it would make him a zombie too. HAHA

Now I'm going to tell you about cookie #2 for the night.  These are chocolate chip peanut butter cookies.  You can find the recipe here. They looked and smelled yummy, but because I'm on a diet again, I can't tell you for sure.  Anyhow, I made up enough to place 3 in individual baggies for disbursement in the hubs care package.  I also left out a handful to give to the man at the post office who always teases me about not saving him any cookies.  Just a hint to my fellow army wives, when sending out multiple packages a week to go overseas, it's always good to have the postal employees on your side.

The Simpson's Box

My husband and I have this funny thing we do. Instead of carelessly tossing around "I love you", we actually have to put a little thought in creativity in our words of love to one another by saying "I love you more than..." For example, he might say "I love you more than you love to win arguments" or perhaps I might reply "I love you more than Opera loves to put photos of herself on her "O" magazine".  That's just our thing.  It avoids us saying "I love you" out of habit or impulse. Every time we say it, we have to think about it, therefore we know we mean it.  One night I told my husband, "I love you more than you love telling my dad about that time you out-fished him." Believe me when I tell you, that's a LOT of love and there was no way he could top that one.  Well my husband was in humor shock which resulted in his creativity coma.  Therefore his weakened reply was, "I love you more than Homer loves Donuts".  I giggled at how lame his comeback was.  So a few days later when I saw The Simpson's gummy snacks, there was no doubt that this was to be the next theme of his box.  I'm still mad that I forgot to write "I love you more than Homer loves donuts" in the bottom of his box :(  All well, hopefully he'll get the pun on his own.  Read on to the post that follows for further details.

MMM...DONUTS...

This week's box is brought to you by The Simpsons and the letter mmmmm.... and the letter ooooooo....
My inspiration for said box started a few weeks ago, after finding some Simpson's gummy snacks at Michael's. I figured it'd be easy. I could throw in The Simpson's Movie, The Simpson's gummy snacks, those embarrassing and tacky Simpson's boxer shorts (you can find those just about anywhere), and some Butterfingers (remember those old Bart Simpson's commercials?) Of course, that's about all I thought of at the time, but I figured I'd think of more as time went along.  Well, I didn't think of much more, as that's about all the Simpson's items that inevitably ended up in the box a few weeks later.  However, my husband has requested I place individual snack bags in each box now, so there wasn't room for much more anyhow.  When considering cookie ideas for my Simpson's Themed box,  I thought about making beer mugs, beer cans, radio active symbols or a few other cookie ideas.  But there was no doubt I had to do donuts. We all know Homer loves Donuts, if you don't believe me, read the above post. Here is a step by step of this weeks cookie...

Step 1: Use a circular cookie cutter or a cup to cut out your cookies.  Then use a smaller circular item (like the base of an icing tip) to cut out the center hole.  Place on a baking sheet.

Step 2: Bake them (duh)

Step 3: Clean your mixing bowl so that you may prepare your icing for the next step.

Step 4: Pipe the outline of the donut icing with the thicker icing. Allow at least 1 hour of setting time before moving to step 5.

Step 5: Fill in the icing with the glacé icing and cover with sprinkles.

It's me...Mario!

My son is on a Mario kick.  We've redecorated his room with a Mario and Luigi theme.  I bought him Mario and Luigi action figures a few weeks ago and he just loves using them to help Batman and Spider-Man fight off the bad guys, as well as taking them on other various adventures with random superheroes throughout the realms of our living-room.  His imagination amazes and amuses me to no end.  Watching Mario fight off The Joker is one of those moments my husband shouldn't miss out on.  Unfortunately, my husband's chain of command didn't think Mario's missions were as important as my husband's, so they are not sending him home early.  Go figure.  Well, since my husband couldn't come home to Mario, Jagger and I decided to send Mario to daddy. My husband also requested that for now on I send mini bags of cookies with each box, since he gives a lot of cookies away anyhow.  I decided to take it a step further for this box and I sent 10 goodie bags.   Each bag contained a Mario fruit snack bag, a mini candy bar, and a Mario Mushroom Cookie.  The cookies were really unique.  Since it was very late (around 2 AM) and I had to leave for a week long photo session the following morning in VA around 8 AM, I was in no mood to mix up the icing and get out all the tips and icing bags and ugh...no thanks.  So instead I divided the cookie mix in two bowls.  In one bowl I mixed red icing coloring to turn the dough red, the other bowl I left alone.  I shaped the Mushrooms by hand and baked them to perfection!  Shaping the cookies probably took as long as icing them would have, but clean up was pretty simple and by 3 AM, I was in no mood to be cleaning up the kitchen.  Anyhow, here's the Mario box and cookies for this week...

Summer Vacation in a Box

This week's box is pretty self-explanatory.  In our five years together, my husband and I have never taken a summer vacation, it's one of those downfalls to being a military family.  He's either deployed, PCSing, or we just don't have the time.  We never had a honeymoon for this very reason.  We always talk about that vacation we plan on taking someday but to date, it's never worked out.  So this week's care package is the best I can do, it's our dream summer vacation in a box.  It includes a palm tree, pineapple shaped cookies (and watermelon cookies because they were cute), some crab shaped crackers, milkshake poptarts (because as I discussed in a previous blog, he requested poptarts in all future care packages),  some tropical snacks, Weekend at Bernies II (my favorite movie, set in my dream location-the USVI, which I someday hope to visit with the hubs...but that's a future blog post)... and a few summer toys.  I topped it all off with a big ray of sunshine :)  Happy Summer Vacation honey!  Maybe one day we can actually enjoy a vacation together.

DO NOT SEEK THE TREASURE!

I've been MIA for a bit, my apologies.  My mom, brother and his kids came to visit this week.  We had an action packed 3 days.  We visited some local sites, the farmers market, the beach, a farm, tried some local restaurants, and explored the area by playing a game I've been interested in partaking in for a while now...geocaching.  I learned about geocaching recently from Extreme Makeover and was immediately intrigued.  I looked it up on the internet, but was a bit confused and figured someday I'd gather more information and try it out.  However, if you know my brother, you know he's the kinda guy who'll jump at the opportunity to try out something new, hense why we visited new landmarks, unique restaurants, and a farm while he was visiting.  Armed with a geocaching app on the iphones, we headed out into the wilderness in search of a small container (or a treasure for the kids sake).  Our first cache was located only about a tenth of a mile from where we started and was located under some rocks, behind a parking lot, fairly easy walk, fairly easy to locate.  It really got us inspired to seek a second one before dinner.  With only a fourth of a mile walk, we figured it'd be a quick find.  WRONG!  3 toddlers, quarter mile, nothing but grass and rocks equals, whine whine whine!  "Carry me, I'm tired, there's a bug on me, I don't want to walk through this grass, it's too high!"  SHOO! I was soo grateful when we finally found that sucker buried in a tree stump.  We headed to dinner and called it a night.  The following day, we hit the beach.  After our day of sun and sand, we decided to check the iphone and see if there were any nearby caches.  We were in luck, there was one just a few hundred feet from the truck.  This particular cache was a part of the Seaway trail.  The state has placed 15 along this particular region on this trail.  I'm leaving out some details here, but basically after you locate 10 of there caches, you'll be awarded with a coin.  Good fun.  So after such an easy treasure find, we again found ourselves hooked!  We decided to seek another cache from the Seaway trail before we headed home for the day.  There just so happened to be a few more on our route home, so we stopped off the road to seek another.  Oh it's only a half mile away from the road, no sweat, right? WRONG AGAIN!  The pathway to this cache was located directly next to a river, and the mosquitoes were in full bloom.  Unfortunately, we were still in our beach attire...bathing suits, coverups, flip flops...not exactly prepared with ideal hiking gear.  Bugs were flying in and out of our ears and mouths, biting us from head to toe.  It was getting dark, kids had to pee, I had to pee.  Everyone was tired...it was miserable.  After about what seemed to be an hour of walking and whining, we arrived at the location where the cache was said to be.  We searched and searched, but it was nowhere in site. OH NO!! It was terrifying thinking this entire hike might be in vain.  It was getting dark and we didn't have a flash light if we didn't find it soon, we'd never find it.  With the assistance of our cell phones as lights, we searched and searched the brush.  Finally, I saw an odd string tied to a tree and pulled.  Out popped a frog, I screamed!!  Luckily, the cache followed behind so my scream of terror quickly turned to a cry of joy when I realized our search was over.  I quickly pulled out the camera and snapped a photo.  My intentions next were to sign the log book, toss it back and get out of the bug pit.  But to my surprise, when I opened the cache, I discovered something that made it all the whole walk worth it...almost.  It was a cavalry garter.  Before my husband deployed, he was attached to a cavalry unit.  With a short time before there deployment, I had a crash course in the cav.  We had a spouse spur ride, where we earned our spur necklace, and usually our garters.  Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time before the deployment to have the garter ceremony, so it was to be held after the deployment but before the ball so that everyone would have them to wear to the dance.  I was pretty excited about being a part of this tradition and getting to wear my garter to the ball.  Sadly, my husband was transferred to a different unit mid-deployment and we're no longer attached to the cav, which meant, I wouldn't get my garter when he returned.  I was pretty bummed about that.  Fast forward 4 months and here I am in the middle of nowhere finally earning my garter.  And let me tell ya, I earned the heck out of that garter!  I had to run back that half mile with a 40 pound toddler on my hip, in flip flops, fighting bugs, in the dark.  So anyhow, the garter was held safely inside a package that reads, "The yellow garter is an Army Cavalry tradition.  The yellow color represents a longing for a soldiers return.  The white and blue represent the pure and faithful manner in which the wearer waits for the soldier's return.  We have placed this garter as a reminder that soldiers are just men and women with someone waiting for them to come home.  So please take the garter, keep it or move it around, but we ask that you take the time to think of those soldiers that are still away from loved ones." Awesome cache huh?  Trust me Team Skrabelova, I'm thinking of my soldier still away, and I thank you for the great cache!  It made my day.

Once we were back in the car, we asked the kids if they wanted to look for anymore.  In unison, they replied loudly, "NOOOO!" HAHA, well, with just a short time before sunset, we headed off in search of one last quick cache on the seaway trail anyways.  This particular cache was just behind a sign in a parking lot, so we left the kids in the truck with grandma and we jumped out and grabbed it.  Of course, the kids all jumped out anyways to see what goodies were tucked inside.  Nothing exciting was found this time, but we did finally get a punch in our book, putting us one step closer to that reward coin.  After this cache, the sun was set and we were starving, so we finally called it a day.  Unfortunately, my family had to leave this morning, so I guess it just leaves me and the boy to seek the rest of the cache's on the trail alone.  Wish us luck!!

A camping trip in a box

Well, if the s'more & owl cookies weren't hint enough, here's the answer to the big riddle this week...my husband's 1st box for this week is a Camping Trip in a box.  I try to incorporate things my husband loves into the themes of each package, and we love to camp.  It's not something we've had the opportunity to do much because in the 5 years we've been married, my husband has been deployed 3 of them and also because we have a toddler.  However, this year we are devoted to the idea of taking camping trips more often.  Our son is old enough now and my husband SHOULD be home for a while after this deployment (fingers crossed).  The weather is perfect for camping right now, I'm super sad he can't be here to go camping right now.  So since we can't go on a camping trip, I decided to take the camping trip to him.  I sent him a mini-coleman lantern and a ton of s'more items (s'more snacks, homemade s'more cookies, s'more icing for s'more cookies, all the items to make his own s'mores...though i doubt that'll be possible, and of course s'more poptarts-because he's requested poptarts in every box now).  I also sent him some trail mix and trail mix bars.  I was going to send a scary movie too, but this box was filled to the tip top.  All well, I sure hope he enjoys this one.

Who gives a hoot?

So this week's care package is still a secret, but here's a hint...I made the hubs some owl cookies.  These were not easy to make, I couldn't find an idea on google that I liked, so I had to come up with something all on my own.  I'm not a creative thinker like that, I need visuals!  I also decided to only make 7 cookies this week as opposed to the typical 2 dozen.  My husband is a health nut, he doesn't even eat these cookies, I'm pretty sure he gives most of them away.  But he enjoys the surprise of the cookies, and I'm just making them for fun. So what's the point in making 24 at a time?  I decided to freeze the remaining cookie dough for next weeks' cookies.   It was nice only having to decorate 7 at a time, but it left no room for error. Luckily, I only screwed up 1.  I wouldn't really say I screwed it up, actually I forgot to decorate it all together, haha.  Luckily, my son didn't mind disposing of the sad forgotten cookie.   The cookies are ready, the box is ready, but I'm not headed to the post office today.  I have another batch of cookies to bake tonight.  Yes, you read that right another batch for the non-cookie-eating, health nut soldier.  Well, I can't help it.  This recipe was perfect for the box theme, plus this batch isn't going to be for show, they're all about taste!  I have a feeling my husband won't be sharing these so much.  You can read all about the in my next post...leaving you won't hint closer to figuring out the theme to the mystery box.

For now, here's my hooters...

The Coolest Care Package Ever

Yeah that title is a pun, but you can take it literally too...because Penguins are awesome! You would already know that if you had read my previous post.  Anyhow, as I've already noted, my husband loves penguins, so I HAD to send him a penguin themed box this month.  To date, this one is my favorite :D  Honestly, I think the boxes just get better and better.  I've got about 9 stacked up in my office, every other day I'm adding a couple items to each box until they are filled.  I have a box that is just about filled to the top, so I just need to make some cookies this weekend and I'll have it in the mail Monday.  I can't discuss the details of the box yet though, it's Top Secret.  Well, really it's because I think my husband has been checking my blog lately, spoiling his themed box surprises.  So you'll have to wait until he sees it before I can discuss it.  But to hold you over, here's this week's box.

Christmas in July, maybe?

My husband's favorite animal is the penguin. I mean, can you blame him? When God designed these cute little wobbly creatures, he dressed them in a tuxedo.  They're also a bird that doesn't fly, but swims.  Ha, it's like a slap in Charles Darwin's face, and who doesn't love beating up on ole Darwin now and again?  So anyhow, when I first started this whole "themed box" idea, the penguin box was the first one I started working on.  It's taken a very long time to perfect said box, mainly because it's been my favorite box to date and I just looooved adding stuff to it, but partially because it's very difficult to find penguin items in July.  Well, last week I finally was prepared to send out the penguin box so I started working on my penguin cookies.  Here's the process and final product...

Along Came a Spider...

As mentioned in my previous post...this week's care package theme is Spider-Man.  Obviously, this choice was made by our 3-year-old.  He loves Spider-Man, but he's not biased, he pretty much loves all superheroes equally.  But back to the point.  Spider-Man was a fairly easy choice for the box considering there's a lot of Spider-Man items out there to be found.  As noted in the previous post, I began with Spider-Man Cookies, then I added some Spider-Man candy, Spider-Man gummy snacks, a Spider-Man toy and tossed in a Spider-Man movie to finish it off.  I think the hubs will really enjoy this box.  In the future I think I'll do a Hulk box and a Wolverine box as well.

Look out! Here Comes the Spider Cookie

So this week I let my son decide on the theme of daddy's box.  After a short debate, he settled on Spiderman.  Since I've recently decided that each of my husband's themed packages must now contain a unique homemade cutout cookie,  I Googled some Spiderman cookie ideas.  I decided to attempt the ones I found on this site.  They didn't come out nearly as professional as the ones I found, but I don't bake cookies for a living.  So I'm still super proud. Here's the process.  First, I made a template for the eyes and placed parchment paper (I was out of wax paper) over the template and used black royal icing to pipe over it.  I filled in the black outline with white thin icing using the colorflow (or flooding) technique from here.  I let that dry for about 4 or 5 hours.  While waiting, I baked the cookies.  Once cooled, I outlined them in royal icing and again used the colorflow technique to fill them in with red.  Once dry, I piped a spider web.  To finish the cookies, I carefully pulled the eyes away from the parchment paper and placed them onto the webbed cookies using royal icing as a glue to hold them in place.  And there you have it! Spiderman cookies.