December Daily: Day Six and Seven (and a cookie recipe too)

Phew. Caught up again. Having the pages made ahead of time is a huge help - it's the deciding which photo to use and the printing it that slows me down.  And the assembly time.  Life is busy in December. Agreed?

But I'm determined.  So - day's 6 and 7.  On day 6 we decorated the tree. We have quite a few traditions that surround the Christmas Tree but a lot of them I've documented in my larger albums, so in here I was excited to include a picture of the four kids in one shot, and one of my favorite decorating shots. I also included just a bit of how it went down.  (click the photo to see it larger and read the journaling) We try to decorate the tree when everyone's home because they all like to be a part of it.  They each have their own container of ornaments that they've made or they've been gifted. And because I've inherited my great Aunt Mary's need to include story details with everything - most of the ornaments have notes attached.  "We picked this one out because...."  or "this was a gift from your aunt so and so the year such and such"

One of the funniest notes is actually on one of my ornaments.  It says something like this:  I came home from the ladies ornament exchange with this particular ornament and had been explaining to Allan the concept of picking a gift of taking one that somebody else already opened.  He said: I can see why nobody took that ornament, hey mom?"

Kids are a hoot.

Oh. And after the kids are all done decorating the tree with their ornaments and the ornaments that I've deemed childproof or I don't care proof - then it's my turn.  I put up the antique ornaments and my cardinal ornament collection.  And I don't even move any of their ornaments anymore - I outgrew that about six years ago.

Yesterday I made cookies. (recipe at the bottom of this blog post)  This is a cookie that I grew up with, and one that I got an email about a few weeks ago.  Growing up we had a full-time babysitter named Dorothy. Dorothy and her daughter - and her granddaughter are all friends of mine on facebook. Anyway, Dorothy was remembering this cookie and asked if I still had the recipe.

Motivation to pull it out again for sure!  I turned around and emailed my mom because I couldn't find mine (I have since remembered that I put it in a scrapbook. huh.)

My goal was to get some out of the oven before I ran to my dad's yesterday evening.  Goal just barely met - I brought him some very fresh cookies. No photos of that - just use your imagination.

The photo of the cookies is not adhered into the book right now as my plan is to line it up in the binding so that it falls just so and a quick little flip of the photo will reveal the recipe.  Tra-la-la!

All caught up.

********

Mint Surprise Cookies

Sift Together: 3-1/4 Cup Flour, 1 tsp soda and 1/2 tsp salt

Cream: 1/2 Cup Butter and 1/2 Cup Shortening

Add: 1 Cup Sugar and 1/2 Cup Brown Sugar

Add: 2 eggs, 2 T water and 1 tsp. vanilla

Blend in dry sifted ingredients
Chill

Wrap around a mint. (I used to buy my mint wafers from candy shops or bulk food stores but for lack of having one near me anymore, I bought the mint wafers from the cake decorating department at Jo-Anns. They aren't quite as creamy as what I've gotten before, but the end result is very similar)

Top with a walnut

Bake at 375 for 10-12 minutes.

I was going to watch how many they made yesterday, but I really was in a hetta and it didn't happen.  If I remember correctly though it was 3 1/2 pans which would be about 70 cookies. There are only a few left.

I also have to say that I absolutely love my Pampered Chef cookie scoop for making this.  I scoop the chilled dough, cram mint into the middle....

....then cram it in just a little bit more, drop the plop on the cookie sheet (that picture didn't turn out) (it's not easy to take pictures of one's self baking) ....

Plate and enjoy
or skip the finer details and just enjoy.

be good!

 

 

Comments

[Cammy]

I still move the ornaments, but not as much as I used to. In fact I moved one today. In my defense it was on the very bottom branch, dragging on the floor and it was glass. I could just see it getting broken.

[Kim]

In your pictures of the mint surprise cookies, the ones where you get good depth of field of the pampered chef scoop, would you mind sharing what lense you are using?

great Dec. daily!