The Most Magical Weekend....

This weekend I spent LOTS of family time with my children & husband! Not only did we spend lots of time together we also were very productive ! We made our time at home Saturday magical by spending the whole day baking, making & eating!

• The First thing Isabella & I did was make Reindeer Chow Snack Mix ! Mmmm... hard to keep your hands off of the rest of the day ! As you can see in the background, we also made "Cookie Press Cookies" from Jim's late grandmother's recipe. This has been passed down for a few generations and I can't wait until it is passed on to Isabella & Isaiah & their children too.  This is what they look like decorated! Much more Yummy!

• Next we made a DOUBLE batch of my mother's sugar cookies, now this is a challenge for me. I absolutely LOVE my mother's sugar cookies, but I think I have to make 400 of them before I get them right ! I cannot wait until the day I get it right the first time. Maybe she needs to give up that "ROUND" cookie cutter than I don't have & then they will be perfect. Or maybe it 's the patience she's had with her cookies ( and her children) that I cannot seem to inherit. But either way, you will see I started moving on to other things & letting my daughter & husband take over the cutting process. In the end, we did finally get it right, and I tasted one of the best. See pictures and recipe to follow! One great ingredient that I am not sure ANY other sugar recipe has, : SECRET: SOUR CREAM ! Seriously, you should try them!

Judy's Homemade Sugar Cookies

Mix These Ingredients Well Together:

1 Cup of Butter

2 Cups of White Sugar

3 Eggs

1 Cup of Sour Cream

1 tsp. of Vanilla

In Another Bowl:

4 1/2 Cups of Flour

1 Tsp. of Baking Soda

3 Tsp. Baking Powder

1 Tsp. Salt

Mix ALL Together By Hand

Roll Out & Cut

(hint:to make them not crunchy but thick & super soft they need to be rolled out THICK! )

Bake at 350 Degrees for 10-12 minutes

The next thing that we did was make "The Gingerbread house" - Every household with young children always need a gingerbread house. Sadly, I have my husband & darling son that are very particular & architects as I learned. My daughter & I helped, but easily got bored and let them 2 "finish" it up. Besides Isaiah "Sneaking off" and eating all the gumdrops & candies, this boy was having lots of fun! I think I only heard Jim say "Don't touch" 100 times! I was in the kitchen laughing as I heard him repeatedly tell Isaiah "Don't touch" ...LOL!



Of course, the day wouldn't be complete if we didn't get to decorate some of those Sugar Cookies! So here then are some photo's of the kids decorating their cookies.

Here Isabella is decorating hers:

And here is Isaiah mostly just "licking the icing" .. and mommy helped him "finish" covering the cookies! Little Stinker! 

Of course, I let them eat them!!! 

It was a magical day spending time together, teaching Isabella in the kitchen, watching Isaiah "learn" how to sneek away 2 cookies, making a gingerbread house and letting them eat their decorated cookies! *** OH... and my wonderful husband to clean up the MESS! ****

But that's nothing compared to what we had going on Sunday! Stay Tuned! ...........