There are 800 cookies sitting in my kitchen this morning—none of which I baked myself.

Friends are God’s way of taking care of us.—Author Unknown

A year ago, when my sister and I started planning this 40th wedding celebration for my parents, I knew it was going to be a lot of work. Frankly, living over 300 miles from my parent’s home, I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to pull it off. Not living near my parents, I (briefly) considered hiring a lot of it out, but honestly, we really don’t have that kind of money. Last night I hosted a dinner party for eleven friends—a small way of saying “thank-you” to each lady for baking seven dozen cookies for me. (Six dozen for me to take to Tulsa and one dozen for us to sample together.) It was so much fun and a much needed respite in between all of the May activities. I tried to make it girly and fun. We used the good dishes and I served lasagna, homemade crescent rolls and my all time favorite spinach salad. After supper, we consumed 2,000 calories in a matter of five minutes, nibbled on cocoa crinkles, Russian tea-cakes, chocolate bread, lemon bars, Snickerdoodles, chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips, gingersnaps dipped in white chocolate, Hershey Kiss cookies, peanut butter cookies, Cookie Monster cookies and meringue kisses. Biggest thanks goes to Abbey W for diving into the world of unknown cookie making and baking the Russian tea-cakes which sounded very intimidating. (She was scared to death that she wasn’t doing them right since she had never made them before.) All of the cookies were delicious and I know all of our guests are going to enjoy them. How would I get by without all of the beautiful women in my life? Thank-you sooo much friends. It made me feel very loved and cared for to know that I had so many friends willing to help me in a tight spot.