Sunflower Cookies

My friend, Burcu, celebrated her 40th birthday yesterday (this picture is from last summer) 

so I made her some special Sunflower Cookies to celebrate her special day.

I've never made sunflowers cookies before, so they were a fun new project for me. I found these cute buckets at Target and I added a decorative birthday ribbon to the bucket. The sunflower cookies are on sticks, but instead of baking them with the sticks which I really don't like doing, I used the idea from Pam of CookieCrazie to simply tape the cookie stick onto the back of the cookie bag using big shipping tape.

I used extra long cookie sticks that I found at Michaels to test them out.

Since I finished my baking, I was able to participate in a nice bike ride yesterday. We did 67 miles with 6,100 feet of climbing. There was snow at the top of the mountain so that was pretty exciting to see out here in California. The climb up to the top was really enjoyable, but coming down the mountain was cold and very bumpy. The fast descent with all those bumpy roads hurt my back and hands from the rough road vibration. Once we got to the smoother part of the road, it was perfect and we went whipping around the corners like we were skiing. It was a fun day and a great work-out.

This picture wasn't from yesterday's ride, but gives you an idea of the gorgeous view at the top of Mt. Hamilton. Now just imagine it with snow along the sides ;-)

I was hoping that my first cookies with my new pink mixer would be Fairytale cookies with castles and crowns and cutesie pink items, but one of the cookie cutters hasn't arrived yet so that will have to wait a little longer. Next will be Cowboy Cookies after I get caught up on a little bit of paperwork and scheduling for family events. Have a good week everyone!