Fun in the Snow

Cade's Piano and Guitar Recital at the Nursing Home

Making Winter Thank You Notes

Making Butter and Baking Oatmeal Bread

Add 4 cups of heavy whipping cream and 1 1/2 teaspoon course sea salt to a mixing bowl and whip.

The basic butter-making process involves taking whipped cream past the breaking point until it separates into butter and buttermilk. All this involves is a lot of whipping with a stand mixer. ( I first tried the blender - it works much better in the mixer. ) keep mixing the whipping cream on medium speed until the it reaches the soft peak stage, then firm peaks, and finally it will began to clump.

Keep on mixing and then suddenly the clump will release its buttermilk. The buttermilk will be in the bottom of the mixing bowl. Strain the buttermilk into a measuring cup for later use. What is left is a pale yellow clump- BUTTER.

We are going to use our Homemade butter mixed with herbs on homemade oatmeal bread.

This was a fun experiment for the boys.


Oatmeal Bread
This recipe comes from an old cookbook

2 pkgs active dry yeast
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 cups boiling water
1 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup molasses
1/3 cup shortening
1 Tablespoon salt
5 1/2 to 6 cups sifted enriched flour
2 beaten eggs

Soften yeast in 1/2 cup warm water. In a large bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups boiling water, oatmeal, molasses, shortening, and salt. Cool to lukewarm. Add the yeast mixture and Stir in about 2 cups flour, and eggs, beat well. Add remaining flour to make a soft dough. ( Dough will be a little sticky). Grease top, cover tightly and place in a draft free place for 1 to 2 hours. Turn out on a well floured surface and shape into 2 loaves. Place in greased loaf pans and let rise, covered in a warm place until doubled, about 2 hours. Bake in moderate oven ( 375 degrees ) for 40 to 50 minutes.

We had A Beautiful Christmas Eve Service Last Night

Due to weather our the Christmas Eve candle light service and childrens program were rescheduled for Sunday evening. It was beautiful- The boys were not that excited for me to snap a few photos after the program.


Here are the banners we worked on to decorate the church. The Pictures are not the best but they really looked great hanging in the church.

Please- Don't Shoot Your Eye Out

The boys got new bb guns for Christmas from Santa this year. Here is some safe practice going on.

It Is Still Snowing....

MERRY CHRISTMAS

We have enjoyed our Christmas snowed in at home.

Cookie Baskets

Here are a few decorated cans filled with snowman and snowflake sugar cookies for Neighbors.

Quinn's Birthday Treats- Snowman Cookies

Quinn requested snowmen cookies for his birthday treats. He wanted Chocolate chip mouths, orange gum drop noses, and peppermint sticks for decoration.
We had a great time seeing the movie Avatar in an Imax theater for his birthday.

Creating Gifts of Tea

I have been busy creating these paper Tea cups filled with my favorite loose teas and a poem.

Happy Birthday to You Cookies

I made a few of these for a music themed birthday party this week.

O Christmas Tree Cookies

I made a dozen Music/O Christmas Tree theme cookies yesterday for the Music Program's bake Sale. I created a few tags with sheet music and Christmas Trees to go with them.

Both the middle school and the Elementary Christmas Programs were Wonderful this year- The Music and Band Director do a great job and the kids looked like they were really having fun.

Cookie templates

I used my Silhouette machine to cut out several Christmas tree shapes and then used the negative space to make stencils or templates. I first, cut out sugar cookie dough using a round cutter and then rolled the edges in course decorating sugar and then baked them. After the cookies were cool, I placed a template on top and then painted the trees with green luster dust and the stars with gold luster dust. The luster dust was mixed with a tiny amount of almond extract. This is a super fast and simple way to decorate sugar cookies.

Christmas Cards

I mailed most of my Christmas Cards today- I have a few left to do. Here are a few of the designs I made using by new Silhouette machine.

Making: 100 Cookies for the Soup Kitchen

we participated in the "Drop in and Decorate" Project http://www.dropinanddecorate.org/- where groups were to get together and decorate cookies for a soup kitchen or a senior center. It was planned for our 4-H group of about 60 kids to do as a project at this month's meeting. Unfortunately, due to our winter weather and snow days, the meeting was canceled. So the boys and I went ahead and spent some time baking and decorating the cookies that were served today at a local soup kitchen. The boys enjoyed decorating the snowmen with food markers. We plan on taking Quinn's cub scout group down to that soup kitchen to help serve a meal sometime this winter. I think it will be a great service project.