Sundays For Sarah - Hannah is here!

This is the best and last post for my series "Sundays For Sarah"! I'm thrilled to share with you that Hannah Rose O'Brien was born Monday, December 29th @ 3:35pm. She weighed 6 lbs. 4 oz. and is 19.5 inches long. She is absolutely beautiful!! Mom and daughter are both doing great, they arrived home Wednesday afternoon and Sarah and Mike are beginning to settle in as a family of four. Can you think of a better way to begin a new year? I certainly can't, there's nothing more amazing than the birth of a child. Thank you again to everyone who kept Sarah and Hannah in your prayers these last few months as Sarah was bedridden with premature labor. God certainly answered all our prayers and blessed the O'Brien's with a perfectly healthy baby girl. WOW!


My last post prior to Christmas was our cookie bouquets for teachers and bus drivers. I had so much fun making those gifts that I made another 13 bouquets for Marty's fellow office workers and a few for friends of the family for Christmas gifts. Every recipient was so thankful and gracious that I began to think of other ways to share this cute gift made with love from my kitchen. Well...you guessed it...when Hannah was born I immediately knew I wanted to try preparing a baby bouquet. I began planning which shapes, colors and sizes would be the best to celebrate Hannah's birth.


I chose the star cookie cutter in three different sizes. The largest was used to announce that "A Star is Born", the middle sizes I used for Hannah's weight and length and the smallest sizes I made colorful with polka-dots and squiggles.

When I was creating the ornament cookie for the Christmas bouquets, I looked at the shape upside down and realized it could also be used to make a baby rattle. I cut out two rattles, on one I piped Hannah's name and the other I piped to look like a baby girl's rattle.

Of course, when you hear of any birth you can't help but thinking of those precious little hands and feet, so I knew I would have to make a couple of those too. My wonderful Mom had given me some cookie cutters at Christmas gifts and one was a little hand...perfect! Thanks Mom!! I ran to Michael's and found the foot. I piped and flooded these with purple and pink and piped cute little baby phrases.

My final cookie design was chosen by my eldest daughter who insisted that we include two duckies. Mike and Sarah just completed the kids' bathroom in a cute, duck theme and my observant, creative daughter thought this design would tie everything together and give Josh a cookie to eat too. I love moments like this with her! She even researched duck cookies on the web to pick the perfect way to decorate the ducks. It doesn't have to be said, but I must...she just loves Josh. :)

To present the bouquet, I bought a simple clay pot and Megan (eldest daughter) painted it white with pink polka-dots that went well with the polka dots on the cookies. We then rolled up 5 onesies and tied them to the outside of the pot with a ribbon that said "It's a Girl".

The entire bouquet turned out really cute, and, more importantly, Sarah loved it!! That's the best part of giving a gift that is homemade with love...seeing the joy that the gift brings to it's recipient.

For this bouquet, I used a different recipe for the cookies. I recently purchased the amazing book "Cookie Craft". I wanted to research and learn more techniques to creating beautiful, artful cookies and this book does not disappoint. The cookies were soft and chewy and have a great buttery flavor and held up incredibly well on the cookie sticks. Enjoy!

Rolled Sugar Cookies

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Whisk together the flour and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.
2. Using your mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy. (If your mixer has multiple multiple attachments, use the paddle.) Add the egg and vanilla until well blended.
3. With the mixer on low, gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture until the two are thoroughly blended.
4. Turn out the dough on the work surface and divide it into two or three equal portions. Form each one into a rough disk. Chill for a couple hours.
5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
6. After you've rolled and cut the dough and the cookie shapes are on parchment-lined cookie sheets, bake them in the middle rack of your oven for 12-16 minutes.
7. Cool the cookies completely on a rack before icing or decorating.


Source: Cookie Craft