Happy Valentine's Day!

I love any excuse to bake something crazy. Lucky for me, today was my turn to host our weekly playgroup for E and her little friends, so I decided to go all out and make some fancy schmancy Valentine cookies. The iced sugar cookies didn't quite turn out as nice as the picture in my head, but considering how rusty I am, I was pretty happy with them. These were more or less the best of the bunch: And the shortbread hearts up top (from the Barefoot Contessa Cookbook) were really tasty, even though the dough was really hard to work with. I was so fed up with how crumbly it was that instead of re-rolling the scraps after my first cutting, I just tossed everything. I had enough for about 15 cookies (top and bottom), which I figured was more than enough for 7 moms and babies. And I was right: there's a ton of leftover. I guess I know what T & I are having for dessert tonight. I'm not complaining.

A few more pics. Here are the ones that came closest to what I originally wanted:
And here are the rest of the cookies, including the reject ones that in my typically OCD manner, I deemed unfit to put out.