Invasion of the toast people...

It's been cold this month, so we've mostly been indoors, trying to find things to do to keep ourselves amused. The kids have been watching old classics on netflix (it was the original Karate Kid movies this weekend), reading, and drawing. Today they requested eggs for dinner, so I did it a little differently... and tada... the toast people invaded...

Magical Christmas

This year, we decided to do something a little different for Christmas. Back in late summer, a friend of ours suggested that we join their family in renting cabins by a lake about 40 minutes drive from here, at one of the state parks, for Christmas weekend. It sounded like fun, so in early October, we made our reservation, and before we knew it, Christmas was here, and we were discovering our weekend getaway...

The cabin sleeps 8 and there are 6 of us, so it was plenty spacious, and our friends even brought us a live tree they cut down on their property, that went all the way to the rafters! Christmas Eve, the two families settled in and we made ornaments for our trees, and enjoyed a great feast of Wham! (vegetarian "ham"; not that 80's band!), sweet potatoes with apples, and tons of other delicious goodies!

Christmas morning, after the boys woke the whole cabin several times clambering downstairs to look for their stockings (Santa hid theirs under my bed; imagine that), we finally got up with the sun and started our day. We read the Christmas story from Luke and Matthew, then opened our presents to each other. Then we had a breakfast of leftovers and opened our presents from grandma and grandpa. Here, the kids peer into the grandma and grandpa box...

We enjoyed playing with our stuff all day, then in the evening, the families got back together after dinner for hot cocoa around the campfire. My 8 year old read us a children's storybook of Christ's birth. What an awesome way to spend Christmas!

Christmas is almost here!

Seems like the last few weeks have been rush, rush, rush! Thankfully, we've had nice weather to make it easier on us, but the kids keep wanting snow. We might get a white Christmas eve; we shall see! Two Sundays ago, the kids had their church Christmas play, and they were sure tickled with that. My oldest is now officially a "big kid" so she got to watch (and man a second camera) with me. The play was simple this year. One group of children took turns reading the story of the nativity from Matthew, and the other children joined the stage as the players in His birth. Then they had the audience join them in singing Christmas songs. Simple, but beautiful.

Cookie Trays, Stockings, and Scarves!

Been busily at work, getting things ready for Christmas! I took a picture of our cookie trays (from the recipes I posted last weekend) before we started taking them to their new homes. We had 12 families to deliver to, and got some humongously wonderful smiles in return! Here is how the cookies looked:

The next project I worked on was a set of 8 Christmas stockings; 5 for my kids and 3 for another family we'll be sharing part of Christmas with. I made 3 green, 3 red, and 2 white stars on white. They turned out super cute, and they'll be so fun to fill with goodies!

My next project, which I finished today, was scarves. I was given a wonderful scarf last year and have absolutely loved it. So, I used it as inspiration for the ones I'm giving as gifts this year. To make two scarves, I started by getting 1/2 yard each of dark pink, light pink, and black fleece (on sale at Hancock Fabrics for $3.99 per yard, usually $8.99- I love a good deal!). I cut each half yard in half lengthwise and stacked them, then sewed a zigzag stitch down the middle to hold it together. Like this:

Next, I cut fringe on both sides of the zigzag stitch, leaving about 1/2" of uncut fabric on each side. Then, I shook them out so they'd be all fringey, and voila, now they are nice, warm fluffy scarves- like this:

Snickerdoodles

The kids loved that this recipe bears the same name as a favorite 3rd grade teacher... LOL. It makes great snickerdoodles! Click here for the original recipe.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
2. Cream together butter, shortening, 1 1/2 cups sugar, the eggs and the vanilla. Blend in the flour, cream of tartar, soda and salt. Shape dough by rounded spoonfuls into balls.
3. Mix the 2 tablespoons sugar and the cinnamon. Roll balls of dough in mixture. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets.
4. Bake 8 to 10 minutes, or until set but not too hard. Remove immediately from baking sheets.

OMG They're So GOOOOD Cheesecake Cookies

Yup. Hard to resist eating all the batter before it even gets in the oven, and the cookies are to die for! If you like cream cheese, you gotta make these! I imagine the pecans could be left out and still turn out ok.

Ingredients

• 2 8 oz pkg cream cheese, softened
• 2 cups softened butter
• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 2 cups chopped pecans
• 4 cups sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla

Directions

1. Cream butter, cream cheese, vanilla, and sugar. Beat until light and fluffy. Add flour, and once it's mixed in, stir in the chopped pecans.
2. Form dough into 1 inch balls, place 2 inches apart on cookie sheet, then dip the bottom of a glass in water and gently press each cookie until it's about 2 inches in diameter.
3. Bake at 375 for 12 to 13 minutes. Cool 2 to 3 minutes on cookie sheets before removing to cooling rack.

They look nothing like the pics on the original recipe page I used (click here to see), but who cares- they're awesome!

Lemonade/Passionfruit Punch Cookies

This is a new recipe we tried this year. I decided that if lemonade is good, other things might be, too. So we made one batch with lemonade and one batch with a frozen passionfruit punch. Both turned out excellent! I followed the original recipe, except I didn't save the extra to brush on top and it was just fine. Made a very soft, cake-like cookie.

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 (6 ounce) can frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed
• 2 tablespoons white sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Lightly grease a cookie sheet.
2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and 1 cup sugar. Blend in eggs. In a medium bowl, sift together flour and baking soda; gradually beat into butter mixture, alternating with 1/2 cup lemonade concentrate. Drop mixture by rounded teaspoons onto the prepared cookie sheet.
3. Bake 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, until lightly brown. 

Click here for the original recipe.