Every year around the holidays, my mom makes these little butter cookies that are rolled out and cut into stars and half moons baked until they’re perfectly done and cooled before dipping them halfway in chocolate and sprinkling them with crushed nuts. They’re perfect and they fall apart in the best way if you dip them in hot tea and my brother’s girlfriend Jane and I sat down together and probably ate 30 of them the day after Thanksgiving this year.

I love the traditions that just happen, the ones you don’t have to plan for but then if you forget about them one year people (i.e. me) are like “BUT WHERE ARE THE COOKIES?”

I made the cookies last year before I had a baby and I froze them so my mom and I could eat them when she got to town. We defrosted them and dipped them in hot tea and they were good but they weren’t as good, so this year I didn’t make them (it could also be because I already ate at least 15 just a few weeks ago).

So this year Rob and I made some sugar cookie dough on a Saturday morning while Sophie napped, and we drank our coffee as I rolled the dough into four sections and twisted each one into a plastic wrap-covered ball. Into the fridge they went and later on that afternoon we rolled them out onto a marble slab and used a juice glass to cut them into perfect circles before baking them and then transferring each cookie onto one of two cooling racks which I ordered on Amazon two days before for exactly this reason.

Sunday was Cookie Decorating Day, so I set out a variety of sprinkles and those cinnamon red hots and we opened a bottle of sparkling wine before mixing powdered sugar with egg whites, a squeeze of lemon juice, and a shocking amount of milk because it seemed like we were mixing concrete, not icing. Countless Instagram cookie decorating videos had me feeling incredibly confident about my innate royal icing piping skills, so Rob and Sophie watched as I piped and flooded white backgrounds onto each of the cookies with the help of my friend Mary, who came over just to decorate cookies with us on a Sunday afternoon.

A few drops of food coloring into each one of four bowls and a few more piping bags later, we had cookies that were…not as cute as I thought they’d be.

But what a fun afternoon it turned out to be, and later that evening after Mary left we tucked Sophie into the stroller with a blanket and walked through our neighborhood, talking about what cookie cutters we should get for next year and how when Sophie is older maybe she’ll want to invite her own friends over for the annual Peterson Family Cookie Decorating Party.

PS we used this cookie recipe and it was perfect. This frosting, not so much. If you have a sugar cookie frosting recipe you love, let me know!

While we were in Roanoke for Thanksgiving, we decided to take advantage of having so many friends in town for the holiday and threw Sophie a little first birthday party at my mom’s place. We were so touched by how many people took time out of their holiday weekend to celebrate with us—our friends Corri, Caroline, and Shawna even drove three hours each way in freezing rain to attend (some with babies, some with the birthday cake).

It was simple but sweet and so incredibly wonderful to get everyone together. Sophie had so much fun/wore herself out so much that she still managed to take her afternoon nap before returning downstairs to party some more.

As usual, Minted was kind enough to provide us with invitations and decorations. I bought some balloons at the grocery store and that was that! We ordered cookies and cake from Suárez Bakery in Charlotte, and my mom and I made the rest of the food—turkey wraps, ham and cheese sandwiches, chicken salad with croissants, Buffalo chicken dip, spinach artichoke dip, and plenty of fruit, veggies, and crackers.

It was incredible and slightly bizarre to see so many of my best girlfriends at once—we pretty much all had babies in the last year and having them there was so fun. We’re all pretty spread out and we stay busy so having everyone together was a treat.

The younger babies snoozed and the older ones played together a little with some blocks and puzzles my mom saved from when Sean and I were little.

And then of course we all had cake.

Photos by my friend Sarah of Photo Love.

Happy Friday, friends! I’m so excited to finally be sharing my new and updated website, complete with fresh branding. Everything was done by my genius still-have-never-met-before-in-real-life-but-knows-me-like-a-sister designer/friend Kelly, and I couldn’t be more thrilled with all of it.

Last year I took a lot of time to really think about what I wanted this blog to be, and I kept coming back to a general theme of “home,” and more specifically “food + words.” I’m usually happiest with the content I put out when it’s a delicious recipe or a personal essay that allows me to share little bits of my life with my readers, so that’s what I plan to focus on the most. I’ll still share the occasional product post and more short-form pieces (Five Favorites, Sentences, Some Things You May Not Know About Me, etc.), but I’m hoping to post more regularly in 2019 and zero in a bit more.

I’m also really enjoying sharing some of my motherhood journey so far, and I’ve been really pleased with the response those types of posts have gotten. It’s a wild ride and I’m always so happy to share mine and hear from you about your own experiences. Thank you for always being so open and helping me create a safe space to share.

A few housekeeping items: I’ve been wanting to start a newsletter of sorts—not so much a recap of what’s on the blog (although I’ll probably include that here and there), but an honest-to-goodness letter that I sit down and write to whoever subscribes. It might be monthly, it might just be quarterly—I’m still not too sure of the details but if it sounds like it might be interesting to you feel free to sign up here.

And finally, going forward I do plan to continue to partner with brands, although I hope to remain picky and really only work with companies that I love and who speak to me in some way, on content that I’m proud of and excited to share. If you are interested in working together in 2019, please send me an email.

That’s all for now! Wishing you a wonderful weekend—please feel welcome to stay a while and click around the new site. Let me know what you think!

As always, thank you so much for reading! This blog has seen me through so many life changes and ups + downs, and it has always been such a gift to have this space to share with you all. Every kind comment and email you guys take the time to send truly mean the world to me—I really do love hearing from you! I hope you continue to feel at home and uplifted here.