fun with frosting

one of the bean's most favorite stories is the classic a very hungry caterpillar.  so when my friend kim chose this theme for her adorable twins' birthday party and asked me to do some cookies, i was excited to help.

i'd seen the decor and food ideas she was using via twitter and pinterest, so it was easy to decide which way to go with the cookies.  after fishing the book out of the bean's room, i got to work.

first, the yellow eye outline.

then i filled them in with a little green and added a misshapen nose.  it's a good thing this design is super forgiving and didn't require precision or perfection.

at this point, the bean came into the kitchen to see what i was working on.  "mommy, you didn't ask me if you could borrow my book.  you're supposed to ask first!"

well, hell.  she was totally right.  oops.  so i did the right thing - i apologized profusely, asked for her forgiveness, and then distracted the hell out of her with a fun project.  earlier, she'd rolled out some leftover cookie dough and cut out some stars, and i sat her down with her very own bag of frosting to decorate them with.

it worked.

not to mention, i was pretty impressed at how she was able to pipe the frosting out into a pretty darn good outline on those stars.  guess she's been paying attention after all.  or, she's just a natural.  you decide.

so with her mollified and busy with her own work, i went back to mine.

i so wanted to add the caterpillar's antennae.  i really did.  he seemed a little...naked without them.  but after a couple of tries - swooping them to the sides (which made him look like groucho marx) and little short and stubby ones (which just didn't look right at all), i had to leave them off.  kim had sent me some cute favor tags to tie onto the bags, so i just hoped they would look great all dressed up.

and luckily, they were just fine.

all's well that ends well.