collaborative projects
2014 Valentine Swap!
Do you know what cookiers love more than ANYTHING else in the cookie world? Can you guess? It’s receiving cookies from other cookiers! ♥
So I asked a bunch of my cookie friends if they would like to participate in a Valentine Swap with me… and a bunch said yes! I spent the next four weeks in giddy anticipation, ready & excited to start receiving all of their beautiful cookies! And oh my, but they did NOT disappoint!
Now, as the boxes began arriving, my “cookie room” started to become a disaster zone. It was all worth it, though! My husband helped me on the final night of packing, and we decided to sort out the cookies on the table (with all the leaves in for length!) to start an assembly-line process for packing. Even still, four designs’ worth of cookies would not fit, and they are in boxes on chairs next to the table. See?

Hail to the Chief!
♪♫ Hail to the Chief,
He’s the one we all say “Hail!” to! ♫♪
The entire time I’ve been working on this President’s Day cookie project, that’s the song snippet that has been rolling through my brain. Remember the movie My Fellow Americans?
So today is a day to celebrate our Presidents! I bring you this man. Or perhaps, this cookie, I guess. This patriotic “man cookie.”
Do you know who it is right away? (Please don’t say Ben Franklin, okay? I might cry. It won’t be pretty, and I’ll think that you love me about as much as my two boys do, for that’s exactly who both of them guessed it was when I was like, “Ta-da! Hey, do you recognize this guy?!”)
It’s John Adams! The first #2 of the United States!
I guess I should take some solace in the fact that a lot of the Presidents, especially the first ones, look sort of the same – like REALLY OLD DUDES. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself while I drown my sorrows in hot chocolate.
About that #2 business… (ha, I just cracked myself up!) … He really was second in a few different ways! You see, he was the first Vice-President, under dear ol’ George, of course. And then four years later, he was the second President, too. He was also the second President to die on July 4, 1826, as his successor, Thomas Jefferson, died just a few hours before him that morning.

