Hello there, lovely!

Valentine’s Day is one of my favorite days of the entire year.  It has nothing to do with lame greeting cards, plastic roses, or fat angel-baby cherubs, it has to do with love.  Love is my self-proclaimed area of expertise. My experience with love ranges from having deep, unbridled love for others, to being the recipient of love and grace from others.  I have seen how love can provide hope in otherwise hopeless situations, I have seen how love can heal broken hearts, and I have seen how love helps us rise above darkness.  What’s not to love about love, right?

So this Valentine’s Day week, my children and I decided to whip up some special cookies to show our love and appreciation for several of the most deserving people within our community – People who play an important role in our lives, and would never expect anything in return.  Here is how this fun baking project came together….

First we started with our basic shortbread cookie recipe.  This is a recipe we use regularly because it is very easy to make, and the edges of the cookies always turn out nice and crisp.  For decorations, we used basic royal icing, and lots and lots of sprinkles!

Next, we baked the cookies, allowed them fully cool, decorated each cookie, and packaged them up into little bags.

Here’s a peek…

Once packaged, it was time to begin our deliveries!  Over a few days, we drove around town, surprising some of our favorite people with Valentines.  This was so….much….fun!

Let me tell you, if you are looking for a meaningful Valentine’s Day project that warms your heart and the hearts of others, this is the project for you.  Even if you don’t have time to bake cookies, and you buy cookies from a box, there is something so special about celebrating the big day of love by giving genuine appreciation to those around you.  No cheesy greeting cards or fat angel-baby cherubs required!

Happy Valentine’s Day,

Emily and the little ones

The post So Much Love to Give appeared first on Pie Crust and Pixie Dust.

Hello friends,

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, and sadly, it is the least of my priorities.  It feels terrible to say that, because as you know, I LOVE celebrating every little thing to the max!  Let me explain….

Our family has been dealing with some big challenges over the last week.  Bullying, self-esteem issues, hormonal changes, and missed homework assignments have been some of the hurdles that we’ve been facing around here.  Truthfully, I kind of feel like taking a knee on mommy-hood for a minute or two, just to collect myself.  You guys, I had to get the school guidance counselor to come out to my car to help encourage one of my children to just go into the school this week.  Whew.  We’ll get through this!

Needless to say, until today I really hadn’t done much Valentine’s Day prep at all.  In fact, today I went to Target, and the seasonal section looked like a FEMA response zone.  While I was hoping for some snazzy cards and fun goodies, all I saw were a few other moms with the same stressed out stare in their eyes, and a bunch of bags of coffee-flavored Ferrero Rocher balls.  Those aren’t going to fly at the pre-school!

The one Valentine’s activity that we did do however, was bake our easiest cut-out cookie recipe ever, CHECK IT OUT HERE.  We have perfected this recipe to make it simple, quick, and delicious.  No fuss, very little mess, and the cookies hold their shapes very well.  Once the cookies were baked, I gave all the decorations to the kids and snuck away to catch an episode of Doctor Foster on Netflix, (might as well have been sitting on the beach if Fiji).  Oh, and incase your were wondering about the mess, I always have my kids decorate on cookie sheets so I can pour (most of) the mess right into the trash. Woohoo! In the end, I think the little ones did a super fancy job decorating the cookies.  Perfectly imperfect is definitely our vibe!

And as I sit here tonight, knowing full-and-well that tomorrow could be a little messy and sparse, part of me thinks this may be the best Valentine’s Day, yet.  Given all of the challenges we’ve faced this week, I really can’t think of a better time to remind my children that no matter what happens in their sweet little lives, they are truly loved more than they could ever know.

We hope your Valentine’s Day is full of love and sweetness.

The post My Messy Valentines appeared first on Pie Crust and Pixie Dust.

Hello Sweet Friends,

Last week, I asked my five year old if she was going to be exchanging valentines with her classmates at school.  In response she said,

Yes, Mommy.  I need to bring 21 valentines to school on Tuesday.  There are 22 kids in my class if you include me, so that means I need to make 21 valentines.”

While her response was completely accurate, I couldn’t help but wonder why we never include ourselves in Valentine’s Day celebrations, when there is so much awesomeness in all of us?  Think about it, as adults, many of us are raising children, working badass jobs, fixing Pinterest-worthy meals (or at least trying to, I mean come on), laundry, marriage, volunteering… I could go on for days. There are serious super-hero skills required to balance such demanding tasks,  yet taking a moment to give ourselves an emotional high-five is far too rare.  I don’t know about you, but I want my kids to grow up with a healthy sense of self-love.  So in the spirit of learning how to love ourselves, I have started a new family tradition.  It’s time to party.

Every February 14th from now on, our family is having a Valentine’s Day party to celebrate others, as well as ourselves.

Our celebration is simple.  Each year, we will bake something to celebrate Valentine’s Day, and take a few minutes to make valentines for ourselves.  It doesn’t matter if what we write is silly or serious, it is just about taking time to write down what makes us special.  Next, we will collect the valentines in a box and save them for down the road when one of us needs a little encouragement.  Over the years, I want my children to have a nice collection of their own valentines to remind them of how they are truly incredible.  They will also have tons from their boring parents!

For the yummy part of our celebration, we decided to bake a homemade pound cake with fondant icing.  Although this cake looks a little fancy on the outside, it’s what is on the inside that really rocks.  You will love this recipe.  The cake is a no-fail old fashioned pound cake with canned cream cheese frosting. E-A-S-Y.  I’ll save the fondant and decorations for a separate post.  The cake itself has few ingredients and is very dependable if you ever need to make a cake in a flash and don’t have much in the pantry.

So this year, I hope you take time to celebrate yourself on Valentine’s Day….. Then eat cake!  I promise this combination will ensure one of your best Valentine’s Days yet.  You deserve it.

With lots of love,

Print

Easy Pound Cake Recipe

Basic Pound Cake

Prep Time 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes minutes

Total Time 2 hours hours

Servings 8

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 cup butter
• 5 eggs
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Instructions

Cake

• Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees
• Combine sugar and butter
• Slowly beat in eggs
• Add vanilla
• Combine dry ingredients in a separate bowl and add once combined
• Beat mixture until smooth
• Pour batter into pan
• Bake until slightly golden on top and there is "no jiggle" on top! 20-25 minutes.

Decorating

• Wait for the cakes to cool all the way down before removing them from their pans. Once removed, you can decorate and serve, or slice the rounded tops and stack the layers with your favorite frosting!

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