Wow How Time Flies!

 

    It Just seems like life has gotten in the way of me blogging about my life! I need to prioritize and set a time that I blog. Well, lets not dwell on my lack of life organizational skills and move on shall we… Good.

   First of all, I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday! We did ! We traveled to Kentucky to my parents house. It was really nice  to spend quality time with them. I did bake an apple pie while I was there. I used a jar of my apples that I canned. It turned out really good.  We did miss having everyone at our house , but we look forward to next year!

    I am so looking forward to Christmas this year! We are able to do more this year for everyone, we have not been able to do that in a while! I am excited to see everyone open their gifts.

My Christmas,  Birthday and Anniversary came early this year! Steve got me a new stove! It is a convection oven ! I love it.

  I was really impressed with the convection feature Tuesday morning when I made a batch of scones! Oh how quickly they cooked,they rose so high! Then I read the  book and realized I did not even have it turned on to convection!!  So imagine how much I loved it when I actually used it!

We give cookies to all the members of our congregation, so I have been baking cookies almost non-stop since I got the stove on Monday! I have made sugar cookies,

The Best Ever Christmas Sugar Cookie

1 cup oil

1 cup powered sugar

1 cup butter (softened) do not use margarine

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs (room temp)

1 tsp vanilla

4 cups plus 4 Tblsp flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp salt

1/2  cup sugar (I used red , for rolling )

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream first 4 ingredients  , then add eggs and vanilla and cream again well. Sift dry ingredients together and add slowly to creamed mixture. Chill covered over night . Roll into walnut sized balls and then roll into sugar and flatten with a glass dipped in sugar and bake for 11 minutes. Do not over bake ! This will make about 6 dozen.

 

 

I have made chocolate chip (sorry no pictures),I made butterscotch chip cookies,

I made Peppermint Sandies,these are wonderful!

Peppermint Sandies with White Chocolate Glaze

Prep: 25 minutes
Bake: 15 minutes/batch
Stand: 48 minutes
Oven: 325°F

1 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup finely crushed striped round peppermint candies (about 11 candies)
1 tablespoon water
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whipping cream
6 ounces white baking chocolate
Crushed striped round peppermint candies

Step 1. Preheat oven to 325°F. In a large mixing bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add powdered sugar and 1/4 cup crushed peppermint candies. Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in water, vanilla, and peppermint extract until combined. Beat in as much of the flour as possible with the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour with a wooden spoon.

Step 2. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place 1 inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake about 15 minutes or until bottoms are lightly browned. Transfer cookies to a wire rack; let cool.

Step 3. Meanwhile, for white chocolate glaze, in a medium saucepan bring whipping cream just to simmering. Remove from heat. Add white baking chocolate. Let stand for 3 minutes. Stir until smooth. Let stand for 45 to 60 minutes or until glaze starts to thicken.

Step 4. Spoon glaze on top of each cooled cookie. Sprinkle with additional crushed peppermint candies. Let stand until set. Makes about 48 cookies

Step 5. Smack your husbands hands to keep them out of the cookies or you won’t have any to give away!

Tip: To crush the peppermint candies, place them in a plastic resealable bag. Lay on the counter and use a rolling pin to crush.

To store: Place cookies in layers separated by waxed paper in an airtight container; cover. Store at room temperature up to 3 days. Freeze unglazed cookies up to 3 months. Thaw cookies, then glaze.

These cookies turned out real well,but let me give you some helpful hints.

Two words ,Parchment Paper! If you don’t use it ,your cookies will stick to the pan because the candy in the cookies.

You will also need to flatten the cookies out before baking, they do not flatten out as they say they will.

I also did not pour white chocolate over whole cookie, I just dipped one end in and sprinkled the candy over that.  I think they look good that way and not as rich. Other wise I really liked the recipe and would use it again.

I plan on baking some old favorites, peanut butter cookies and oatmeal raisin.

We put up a real Christmas tree this year!

I have lost my voice and I am  coughing , my eyes are itching and watering! But wow ! The tree looks great!   I thought it looked better the first time we decorated it…..But….It fell and the balls(shatter proof) went everywhere and we got to decorate it again! It is now secured to the window sill! Lessons learned!

I love to decorate the new dinning room for the holidays!

I searched high and low for these pretty red birds! I love how they look!

Even the back porch got a little Christmas cheer!

It snowed here last weekend and it was so pretty! In the end we got about 5 inches. We took a couple pictures,Oh how I love the winter time!

 

Steve has also been very busy! I like to keep a good honey-do list going just in-case he should get bored or in the un-likely event of him not having anything to do! Not going to happen but … I am prepared for it none the less!

I was really resisting hanging the TV on the wall!  I said I would if we could get a new entertainment cabinet that contained all of the electronics. I don’t like them all out on top. So I showed him some pictures of cabinets that I liked and this is what he came up with. He is so talented! How lucky am I?

I really like the dark finish! I like that it has a lot of storage and I still have room on top and in the shelves for knick- knacks and pictures of our sweet grandsons! We still need to put knobs on it , I think I’ll just keep Steve ! He is really very handy! He was always telling me he could build this or that if he had a table saw and a chop saw so…now he has no excuse!  He even has a pocket jig!

The Grand-babies have grown so much! I think they are adorable , I know you will too!

 

 

Has Trevor stolen your heart?

Well he has stolen mine! Look  at that expression on his face,don’t you wonder what he is thinking about? 

Zack is so handsome ,he is growing up so fast. He has such a wonderful personality. His parents are doing  a fantastic  good job.

Ryan,my sweet angel ! Look how he has grown! He is doing so well right now!  Ryan is such a blessing. I love to hold him and just look at him! He melts me! I love being Nana, there is nothing like it in this world. All the work that you put into parenting your children, is worth having grandchildren!

Well I am sorry about such a long post! I will try to post more often and stay on  top of things! We will see how it goes….. Tune in next time for, “ Our covered back porch.”