Family Thing

My favorite holiday cookie is the sugar cookie. I love to make them for Valentine’s Day, Easter, Independence Day, and Halloween. But most of all I love making them for Christmas because I love to cut them out into these cute little wreaths.

Holiday Sugar Cookies

1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp baking powder
3 cups flour

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs and vanilla. Add baking powder and flour one cup at a time, mixing well. The dough will be very stiff. Do not chill. Roll into 1/8 inch thick and dip cutters in flour before each use. Bake for 4 to 6 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool and then remove from cookie sheet.

Christmas is just around the corner. Sometimes parents seem to have everything and it is difficult to shop for them. Here are just a few ideas about what moms might like for Christmas. As a mom/wife, I know I would be thrilled to find any one of these gifts under the Christmas tree.

1 – How about a Blendtec blender? You know, the one that can blend all kinds of crazy things. Surely it will be able to blend my smoothies and soups.

2 – Then there is the KitchenAid Mixer. I love my 4.5 quart KitchenAid mixer. It has served me well. It still runs well, but if I am going to be making cookies daily for my family I really need the 6 quart KitchenAid. I am not even picky about the color but if I were I would like a blue one.

3 – Next I would have to say a Cricut. These little machines are great for making some pretty great decorations for your home or for gifts and you can get a complete starter kit for a pretty great deal just in time for Christmas.

4 – Since I love taking pictures of my beautiful grandchildren,  a new camera would be nice. I love the Nikon brand! This is an easy to use camera and would make all the family Christmas pictures become wonderful Christmas memories.

5 – Now here is a gift that the whole family will enjoy. The Sumo Lounge beanbag chairs. Great for watching movies, reading a good book or just plain relaxing. Mom’s will love it… and they might even let the family have a turn.

These are just a few ideas for Mom’s Christmas. I know some moms enjoy jewelry while others enjoy family pictures. What will you put under the tree for your mom?

One of our family’s favorite cookies is the chocolate chipper. Who doesn’t love a warm chocolate chip cookie right from the oven? Because this is such a popular cookie in our house we thought it would probably be just as popular in our neighbors’ houses as well.

To keep an abundant supply of cookies always baking in our house, we will make dough balls with a medium size scoop. Then throw them in the freezer and freeze overnight. When dough balls are frozen they store easily in gallon size zip lock bags.

For Christmas we decided to share these delicious cookies with our neighbors and gave them a bag of dough balls to cook whenever they were in the mood for a warm batch of cookies. We attached this cute little card with directions and delivered several bags around the neighborhood.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 ½ cups granulated sugar
2 cups brown sugar
1 lb butter, softened
3 eggs
1 ½ tsp salt
1 ½ tsp baking soda
2 tablespoons vanilla
6 cups flour
2–4 cups chocolate chips
2 cups chopped nuts

In your KitchenAid Professional Stand Mixer,  cream sugar, brown sugar and butter until creamy.
Add eggs and vanilla and mix well.
Add dry ingredients combing well.
Add chocolate chips.
Drop by cookie scoop onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 10 – 12 minutes.

Makes 5 dozen cookies.

Follow this link for the for the Christmas Tag:

Christmas Dough Tag PDF

Thanksgiving is a week away. So much to do with buying the turkey, stuffing the turkey, digging up the yams and making pies. You have all this to do and the kids are just BORED! Here is a great activity to keep your kids busy while you get the food cooking.

My family made these years ago. This is one of my favorite pictures of all time (sorry kids). These cute kids were much younger then and some now even have kids of their own. I am so thankful for each of them (remember to write that on a feather) plus all the wonderful new additions to the family (remember to write that on another feather).

The first thing we did was cut out our feathers. There is a PDF in this post that you can print out your feathers. Then the kids all colored them and wrote all of the things they are thankful for on every feather. We used a carrot for the nose with a toothpick through it and stuck the raisins on with water (they got sticky). We taped toothpicks on every feather and then stuck them in the apples in a tail feather fan.

Afterwards the kids displayed their thankful turkey apples for this GREAT photo. Then do you know what we did?  We gobbled up those turkeys for a healthy snack.

Here is a printable page for the turkey feathers. You can print them on colored paper for a variety of colors or just let the kids color the feathers.

Thankful Turkey Feathers PDF

Have a very Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours!

I love my Cricut! It has helped my family make some great crafts that I will be sharing soon. I am always looking for new cartridges and supplies. This month you can purchase the Cricut November Mystery Box: More than a $120 Value, For Just $29.99. And if you buy more than one you get $10 off. Let the crafting begin!

This morning I woke up and I found this on my table:

Do you know what that means? Time to make the banana bread! Yea! We all cheer because old bananas can turn into one of our favorite treats.

So I took those bananas and I did this:

And used my Grandma Dody’s Award Winning Banana Bread Recipe to make this:

I just love the look of burlap banners so I decided I was going to make one for Valentine’s Day. I bought a roll of burlap, this cute Valentine fabric.

I thought it was going to come together so easily. I was wrong. But I am happy with the results. I had planned on leaving raw edges on the burlap, but as I cut it apart I could see that it was just going to unravel. Then I decided I would just hem the edges but the pressing and turning caused more unraveling. Finally I decided to put fabric around the edges and from there it was smooth sailing.

Each piece of burlap is cut 8 inches by 6 inches. The strips around the edges were cut 2 1/2 inches wide. Each fabric strip was folded in half and then the edges were folded under to make a smooth edge. I ironed each piece for easy sewing. The burlap was just tucked in between the fabric strip and sewn once. No raw edges! While sewing the top strip, I tucked a piece of jute along the top for easy hanging.

The letters were made with my Cricut machine. I ironed my material onto a fusible web (like Heat n’ Bond) and then cut letters on the Cricut. The letters are about 4 inches tall.

I tied a little ribbon on the edges and done! In all it took only about an hour to make this project and now I feel like my whole house is ready for Valentine’s Day.

1 pkg. (21.5 oz.) fudge brownie mix
1/4 c. flour
1/4 c. vegetable oil
3 tbsp. water
2 eggs
1/2 c. chopped nuts (optional)
1 c. chocolate chips (optional)
Combine all ingredients, mixing by hand. Place onto greased cookie sheet with small cookie scoop. Bake until just set at 350 degrees about 9-10 minutes. Cool
(If using a smaller brownie mix, add more flour)

Frosting Middles
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup peanut butter (smooth or chunky)
4 -ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
4 cups confectioners’ sugar
2 tablespoons milk (or more to desired consistency)

Mix all ingredients together for a light and fluffy frosting.
Using same size scoop, place frosting between 2 cookies and press together, Oreo style.