I'm a Good Ag...

Yesterday was a fun day! The weather was sunny and rainy, but it was 77 degrees and I was able to wear a tank top. Only in Texas can you wear a tank top in December. I'm sure you would be able to do it in Key West or Arizona, but hey, I LOVE TEXAS!

I had been working hard over the weekend baking cookies. My idea of a good time around the holidays is making sugar cookies. I started the first of many batches that I will be making for the teachers, coaches, friends, and others. The first round in the oven is always an experiment to see if I have the temperature and the baking time correct to make any adjustments. I had the baking time off by a few minutes so that meant that there were cookies for me to munch on. I should not be eating them with my food allergies to wheat, but I would suffer the itching. It was a sacrifice I was willing to make. I had the dough chilled, the colored sugars ready and the cooling racks spread out around the kitchen. The first tray to go in the oven was for Buddy's Kindergarten teacher from 5 years ago. Buddy loves his Kindergarden teacher and he always wants to get her a Christmas gift. Ms. Donnan loves flamingos so...I made some funky flamingos! These little guys were a bugger to make because if the dough warmed up too much then the neck or the legs would break off when I transfered them from the counter where I rolled them out to the cookie sheet to be baked. I got it done and a baker's dozen of pale and hot pink flamingos reside in my freezer right now.

My next batch was a labor of love. As a graduate of Texas A&M, I had it drilled into my head from the first day of Fish Camp that people who attended the University of Texas were not to be trusted and overall, they were crazy t-sips. Well, as you grow up, you realize that not all Texas-Exes are bad people. A little misguided in their youth, but generally good Texans. So I made the purchase of a special cookie cutter that caused my kid to flip his lid. "MOM! WHAT IS THAT??!!??" he exclaimed and pointed. "What is what?" I replied. "THAT!!!" he shrieked as I saw where he was pointing to. He was pointing to the Longhorn cookie cutter. Had I gone to the DARK SIDE is what my kid wondered? I told him that the cookie cutter was for cookies that I was going to bake for Miss Lauren for her birthday. Buddy loves Miss Lauren and always asks me if she is going to be at TNT practice. So we went to work rolling dough, cutting out longhorns and getting them ready. I let some cool and frosted them. Mixing up the perfect shade of burnt orange icing was tricky.

I texted Lauren yesterday morning and wished her Happy Birthday and asked if I could run the cookies by her school for her. She had some time and she suggested that we go for lunch with our good bud Ryan. This would be FUN! Ryan and I got to the cafe before Lauren so we were excited to see her big smile when she came in. Lauren was blown away by the cookie and by the spectacular scrap book of all the stuff Lauren had done over the last year that Ryan had put together for her. Ryan did a spectacular job on the scrapbook and Lauren was crying.

Ryan is also a Texas A&M graduate, so like Good Ags we had to "Saw Varsity's Horns Off!"

Good Times! Later Gators,

Liz