The cookie lady

Later this afternoon we are going to visit friends who just welcomed their first baby to the world. I always want to bring something in addition to a gift but I barely have time to get dinner together for us much less another family. A few months ago I started having a woman (whom I affectionately refer to as "the cookie lady") make personalized cookies for me to bring on these visits. Beyond being delicious, all new parents love seeing their little one's name and monogram - it just doesn't get old in the beginning!

I think I have an unhealthy addiction to personalized cookies. I mean, someone sneezes and I want to celebrate it with cookies. I may even be known to order "just a few more" for us to enjoy at home. Because let's face it, it's more fun to follow the "one for you, one for me" rule.

As I thought about it, the cookie lady has been there for pretty much every big occasion over the past few years...

Here are cookies she did for a couples shower that had a football theme. You have to know the couple, but she is obsessed with the Saints and he is equally obsessed with the Falcons. So we had a "stock the bar for gameday" shower and had everything in Saints and Falcons colors. What makes this even funnier is that the Saints and Falcons are HUGE rivals. This party was a huge hit with our friends, but I am so sad that I can't find a picture of the invitation because we had it hand drawn and it was amazing.

At one of my college friend's bachelorette parties we hosted an It's 5 o'clock somewhere! shower. The reason behind this was because we surprised her at like 10:00pm at night after she picked our other friends up from the airport, which was comical in and of itself since convincing the guest of honor to get in the car and ride an hour in each direction because you are trying to get them out of the house is not the easiest thing in the world.

Can we also discuss how blonde and long my hair was?

Anyway, I also used her for two standard bridal showers. What I love about the cookie lady is that if you send her a PDF of the invite or give her an idea of the color scheme, she works her magic and then everything coordinates. The first shower was for my cousin's wife, which was held in November and had a burnt orange color scheme.

This was a kitchen shower that we hosted for a high school friend. The invites were black and white, and that random object is meant to be a kitchen mitt.

And of course I used her for Thatcher's baptism a few months ago.

She also did fun cookies for our 10 year high school reunion (we were the Cajuns, so those are crawfish).

And I also had cookies at a brunch that I hosted for the husband's business school graduation.

I have considered trying to learn how to make cookies and decorate them at home, but that seems entirely too ambitious! Do any of you decorate cookies at home? I feel like it'd be a huge production to make all of the icing and get all of the supplies, but maybe one day I'll try to tackle these myself. I just prefer to do the big picture party planning (theme, colors, etc) versus making things - I am a fan of outsourcing!