I love jewelry!

I do love my jewelry and somebody knew it! Julia created this awesome pair of snowman earrings for me. Very detailed sweetie. I wore them out tonight to a friends for a dinner party. All the ladies admired them. How do they look? The model could have worn a bit more makeup and fixed her hair a bit more don't you think? I had to take a picture of Gail's house. It's always decorated so beautifully. The picture doesn't do it justice. Of course, the inside of the house was just as beautiful. We had a very enjoyable ladies night out!

Sugar Overdose Alert!

Oh my! I can't believe all this sweetness! All this plus what has already been eaten was given to me for Christmas by family of residents at work, some staff, and left in my stocking and under the tree. Russell Stover chocolates, Lindt truffles, 2 boxes of Belgian chocolates, Tim Tams, etc., etc., etc. The clear bag with green ribbon is an approximately 8 inch tall chocolate santa from the Alps Sweet Shop. Someone wanted to know if it was solid or hollow, so with a little pressure we found out....hollow. I'm declaring Christmas 2009 to be one free of sugar for me and probably for the rest of the clan.

Christmas Eve/Morning pics

Here's a picture of half of the tree and two of the stockings taken before the big and the little girls came down stairs. I put up the small tree this year. The challenge was trying to chose what ornaments to use. I have literally enough of them to do 2 large trees and then maybe just an icicle tree. I love my icicles. I received these new ones this year from a swap partner in the Secret Santa Swap. Quincy, Filbert loves Olivia and she loves him back. Can you tell in these pictures?

Christmas Cookies

I managed to make a couple of different kinds of cookies this week. I made a batch of Raspberry-Walnut Rugelach I had seen in Woman's Day. It's made with refrigerated pie crust which made for an easy and fast cookie. You spread whipped cream cheese over the crust and then crumble over the top a mixture of sugar, finely chopped walnuts or pecans, cinnamon and raspberry jam. The pizza cutter was a great help in cutting the wedges. I also had another helper with me....Olivia! She supervised and was keeper of the walnuts.
Here's the final product. A plate full of Rugelach for Santa!


My next batch was Dark Chocolate-Dipped Macaroons. The recipe was in the same issue of WD that the Rugelach was in(12/2/08) The picture was taken before I dipped the bottoms in the bittersweet chocolate so just visualize that part. They turned out pretty good. I found out that my son-in-law, Chris, loves macaroons. My other son-in-law, Dan, doesn't like coconut so I won't make these when he visits but I'll be sure to make him something yummy!

More pictures from the Ladies Christmas Gala

Ladies Christmas Gala

I forgot to post about our Ladies Christmas Gala at church earlier this month. We had 22 themed tables, all Christmas related in some way. Each table had a hostess who came up with the idea and through out the year she shopped for goodies and giveaways to complete her table. Every guest left with a bag or giftbox full of holiday treasures. These first 2 tables are 2 of my favorite. I was a guest at the Sugar and Spice table which is the pic with the red tablecloth. Our hostess went over and above with her generosity. This silver table drew my attention with the snowy Christmas village.

Here's a closer look at what we were able to bring home with us minus the pots de creme which was served(and eaten)in the real eggshell. We all walked around and enjoyed the tablescapes, had appetizers and punch, served by some very nice gentlemen, and finished off with dessert back at our tables. The evening concluded with an auction of donated items from the community and the centerpieces from the tables. The proceeds went to our missionaries in Tanzania. We were very fortunate to have had Karen there with us that evening and in the Sunday morning service we were able to present to her and her family a very generous donation along with a little something for each of the children for Christmas! The ladies did an outstanding job again this year. Here are a few more pictures of the evening. The small tree with pillow and cardinals was what I won at the auction.

Black and White party idea

Two of my grandkids, Avery and Mitch, enjoy having what they call Black and White parties. They had the first one at their home one time when I visited last year. We have things to eat that are Black and White, and we are supposed to dress in black and white too. I think these cookies lend themselves to this theme. We've all been eating my Fudge Balls for a few weeks now and I think more are going to be made this week too. Yummy! We have to make sure to bake them the least amount of time to be really fudgy. With my oven, that extra minuteof baking can mean chocolate fudge hockey pucks! Here's the recipe for all to enjoy. If you try it out, please come back and let me know how you liked them.

Fudge Balls

½ c. butter
1 ½ sq. unsweetened chocolate
¾ c. sugar
1 egg ¼ tsp. salt
½ tsp. vanilla
2 c. flour
Confectioners sugar

Melt butter and chocolate in a saucepan. Add sugar, egg, salt, and vanilla. Mix well. Add flour and mix. Roll into small balls and place on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 375 degrees for 7-9 minutes. Cool and roll in confectioner’s sugar.

My village

I really like this little village. I bought it at Sam's Club a few years back and it fits quite nicely on the top of the piano. I pretty much place it as it's shown on the box....no imagination on my part. Does anyone else have a little village?

Christmas views from work

We finished up the decorating at work(I did very little of it). I thought I'd put up a few pictures. This year the 2 little trees are new. They're prelit and have berries in them. They are what I see from my desk. I reworked the old wreath that is hung on the front of the counter(my desk). I really think the bow with the gold ornament "spruced" it up a bit!

Here are close ups of the decorations on the main lobby tree. I have full pictures but since the girls have gone to bed they can't tell me how to rotate them so they are upright. I'm still learning, slowly, how to post correctly and by myself. Someday!

Molasses Ginger Snap Recipe

This is the recipe for you Colleen and anyone else who would like it. We're really liking this one right now. When I made them last night for the swap, I forgot to roll them in sugar before baking. They still were terrific. I've been using shortening and a cookie scoop. The scoop makes for even cookies.

Molasses Ginger Snaps

¾ c. margarine or shortening
1 c. sugar (need additional for rolling)
¼ c. molasses
1 egg
2 c. flour
1 t. baking soda
¼ t. salt
1 t. cinnamon
1 t. cloves
1 t. ginger

Cream together shortening and sugar. Add eggs and molasses. Mix together. In small bowl combine dry ingredients. Add to creamed mixture. Form into balls and roll in sugar. Place wide apart on slightly greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Makes 3-4 dozen.

"C" is for Cookie....

Cookies, cookies and more cookies. A few days ago(last Thursday), while Avery and Mitchell were here, they helped me make cookies for a swap that I had joined. They were my "sugar shakers" for the Molasses Gingersnaps. Mitch shook for a while and got tired of it. He went off in search of Grampie. Avery said she had a fun time. There were enough that everyone could taste, and taste we did. Oh my goodness.....these sent Leslie right down memory lane!! Smelling them and of course eating them too, took her back to when she was 6 years old. That's what she told Avery. I guess I have been making them since the early 70's. We had also made some Fudge Balls on Wednesday night(no pictures of that). I got them all packed up to mail for the swap and .....no address for my partner! I tried emailing her so I could get the package out Saturday. No response. Time passed and the post office closed for the weekend. The cookies were going to be stale by the time Dad got them to the post office Monday and my partner received them. Oh, what to do, what to do?? "C" is for Cookie, that's good enough for me......Cookie, cookie, cookie starts with "c". Imagine 8 Cookie Monsters gathered around a kitchen table on a Saturday night. "Ahh...me loves cookies" said those 8 monsters, and all that was left were a few crumbs. We were bad, very bad.

The Quiet

Wow! It is so quiet tonight and so early. About 11 PM I realized I was by myself in the living room. Now, this is very unusual. The girls stay up late. I'm most often than not, the first one in bed. Tonight, Fred/Dad crept off about 10, Kate, Beth and Olivia followed not long after. They all were very tired. Dad went back to work yesterday after being home a month. Yeah!! Thank goodness for signed contracts that put his company back to work after its hiatus. He's got to get back into the routine of getting up and out early again. Beth's been busy with the baby and hits the sack when Olivia goes down and Kate has started cosmetology school plus working at the library. Today was a 12 hour day for her. She's crashed. I'm on my way now to dreamland. Good night.