As Jackie Dalton drinks a cup of coffee at Oak Harbor Dairy Queen, a small jewel-adorned picture frame holding a photo of her grandson Spc. Shawn Conklin, who is serving in Iraq, sits beside her.

Dalton takes this picture with her everywhere and says a little prayer for him whenever she looks at it.

Known as the Cookie Lady because of her 12 years delivering Christmas cookies to Oak Harbor post office workers, Dalton decided to expand her Cookie Lady reputation and send hundreds of cookies to her grandson and the soldiers he is stationed with in Iraq.

Starting the last week in November, Dalton baked 39 dozen cookies. Some she saved for her annual post office cookie run, and the rest she sent to her grandson. After her grandson received the first shipment and wrote how enthusiastic and grateful the soldiers were, she sent another 15 dozen.

“Oh, they just went wild, and they just loved the chocolate chip cookies,” Dalton said. “That’s why I made some more chocolate chip ones — all chocolate chip this time.”

Dalton said she thinks the soldiers like chocolate chip cookies the best because it is like eating a cookie and candy at the same time, but she proudly adds that her grandson’s favorite cookie is anything she makes.

“He said to me one time, ‘Grandma, you can make me any kind,’” she said, repeating it as if she remembers him as little boy saying it, rather than a grown man.

Conklin spent his 21st birthday in Iraq, came home briefly when his father died in May and then returned to Iraq.

Earlier this year, Conklin told his grandmother that she would not believe what it was like where he and fellow soldiers were fighting every day.

Dalton said she tenses when she hears that another soldier has died and she can’t relax until she has heard the name. She said soldiers deserve goodies from home and makes sure they get them.

When asked if she will continue to send cookies even after her grandson comes home, she didn’t hesitate.

“I probably will, yeah I probably will,” she said. “They deserve it.”

Dalton said the day she shipped the cookies to Iraq, she had to stop at Safeway to buy a few items. An acquaintance asked her what she was doing.

“I’m going to the post office and mailing these cookies to my grandson, in Iraq,” Dalton told her.

Then, she said a gentleman who overheard the conversation handed Dalton $20 to pay for postage. She declined, but he dropped the money into her basket and walked away.

“I thought that was very nice,” Dalton said.

This year, aside from baking for soldiers, Dalton took care of her longtime project of providing treats for local postal workers to enjoy during theholidays.

Even after the sweets are gone, gratitude and thanks keep coming too her. When Dalton walks into to the post office, workers tell her how good her cookies tasted.

“They’re wonderful,” said Carol Peetermans, a postal worker. “They look beautiful and they taste great.”

Another postal worker, Ernie Ebalo, tells Dalton how good her cookies are and vies for a picture with her.

“We all love it,” Peetermans said.

Now, similar sentiments arrive all the way from Iraq.