Chocolate Ginger Cookies

For Christmas Mom gave me a calendar with a recipe each month. I decided that since I like to bake I'd go ahead and give each of the recipes a try. I've never made gingersnap cookies before so I was a little nervous with this one. One think I can say is that molasses stinks. It's a good thing that the cookies are yummy!

Chocolate Ginger Cookies

1 cup (3/4 for high altitude) brown sugar
3/4 cup shortening
1 egg
2 3/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 cup sugar
48 chocolate candies

Heat oven at 375 degrees. Cream brown sugar and shortening. Beat in egg. In small bowl mix flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon and cloves. Add dry mixture to sugar mixture. Roll dough into 1 inch balls. Roll in sugar. Bake for 7-9 minutes. Once removed from the oven, immediately press 1 chocolate candy into each cookie. Cool completely.

I didn't make any alterations to the recipe.

Chinese Coins Quilt

I struggled to come up with a Christmas gift for Mom but when I saw the patter for this quilt I felt this was what I needed to do. The quilt is called Chinese Coins. It represents good luck/fortune.

I had plenty of scrap fabric and Rynell donated a lot to me. All the fabric used was from some project that we had worked on in the past and had special meaning to us. I put the quilt together in about two weeks. Rynell's Mom, Nina machine quilted it for me. I'm thankful to them for the help they gave me to get it done on time. The details are below.

Christmas 09

My plans for going home for Christmas were changing constantly after Thanksgiving and up until the week before Christmas day. I finally decided to spend Christmas Eve with Andy and Rynell's family, open presents with them on Christmas morning and then fly home that day to surprise Mom and Dad.


Here is Audrey with her tutu that Melina made for her. The tutu looks almost as big as her, and we were very surprised that she kept it on without any fuss.

After opening up the gifts I said bye to everyone and took off to the airport. They would be leaving the next morning to drive to Texas.


I took a little video flying into the Midland International Airport. It made me happy to see the oil fields and flat land of Texas. I rented a car and drove home. I arrived just in time for dinner. Of course, they said I should have told them I was coming, but I responded by telling them what kind of a surprise would it have been if I told them. Sam and Cindy's family was already there and it was good to see them.


Andy and Rynell arrived late Saturday night. The next day after church Wendy and David's family came over. The first thing I wanted to do is take the picture of Wendy and Melina next to each other. Melina has grown so much, she's almost as tall as her Aunt.


This is the first time that Audrey and Emily have gotten to spend time together. They played together very well.


For FHE dad took us out to Mr. Gatti's Pizza. It was fun to see all the kids hanging out together. They rarely get to see each other, so moments like this are special.


After we ate, Camille grabbed my hand and had me play in the arcade with her. We had the most fun at the bumper cars.


Here the boys are enjoying air hockey.


Rynell made her famous chocolate cake. She asked me to frost it and I let Audrey lick the spoon and in turn Andy had to lick Audrey's fingers so he could get to some of the chocolate.


The cake for mom's birthday turned out very beautiful and yummy.


I caught Dad in a moment of laughter as we were waiting for dessert.


Then we had mom cut the cake. Yay! Everyone enjoyed the cake!


The day after mom's birthday everyone started to leave for their own homes. I caught these kids playing together and asked to get a photo of them. They were all over the place that I had to ask them to be serious.


Then I told them to be silly. It made me laugh. All the boys did the same thing spontaneously.

Lemon Poppy-Seed Cookies

I saw these cookies on the web one day and thought I needed to give it a try. I didn't get the recipe that day, but it nagged at me and I copied the recipe. It came from Martha Stewart's website. These cookies are incredibly tasty and if you know anyone that loves lemons you definitely need to have these.

Lemon Poppy-Seed Cookies

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice, plus 3 1/2 teaspoons freshly grated lemon zest (2 to 3 lemons)
2 sticks butter
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 lg egg
2 tsp vanilla
1 Tbs poppy seeds, plus more for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bring lemon juice to a simmer in a small saucepan over medium heat; cook until reduced by half. Add 1 stick butter; stir until melted.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Cream remaining stick butter and 1 cup sugar on medium speed in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix in egg and lemon butter. Mix until pale, about 3 minutes. Mix in vanilla and 2 teaspoons zest. Mix in flour mixture and poppy seeds.

Stir together remaining 1/2 cup sugar and 1 1/2 teaspoons zest. Roll spoonfuls of gough into 1 1/2-inch balls; roll them in sugar mixture. Place 2 inches apart on baking sheets. Press each with the flat end of a glass dipped in sugar mixture until 1/4 inch thick. Sprinkle with seeds.

Bake until just browned around bottom edges, 10 to 11 minutes. Transfer to wire racks; let cool completely. Store in an airtight container up to 1 week.

I didn't make any alterations to the recipe. There's no need to! Give them a try.

Christmas Tree

Christmas Tree! I'm so happy I finally have a beautiful tree for Christmas this year. Donna has been staying with me and she always has a live tree for Christmas. So, I told her that she could have a live tree since she's going to still be at my place through the holidays as long as I get to decorate it with my ornaments I got on sale last year. She happily agreed.

The day before the tree arrived I had to move a lot of furniture around. I moved the piano from my bedroom back to the living room, moved the small couch to my bedroom and one of the shelves from the entertainment center, then I moved the location of my TV so that the piano would fit in the living room. I was very exhausted. I don't think my place had any great space for a Christmas tree. I think if I had a bay window it would have given me something better to work with. Anyhow, after all was done, I was exhausted. It wasn't over yet, though.

I was very surprised when a 10 foot blue spruce showed up at my door Thanksgiving weekend. Sadly we had to cut it down to fit in my living room to about 8 to 8 1/2 feet. If I put the tree in the kitchen it would have fit without having to cut it, but I didn't want to try and figure out how to arrange furniture in my kitchen. Plus I think my chandelier would have been in the way.

My niece, Melina came over to help me put the decorations on my tree and spend the night. We had fun going through all the ornaments and deciding where to put them. Melina did a very good job at placing the decorations strategically all over the tree.

Below are detailed pictures of some of the ornaments.


I like the antique look of the ornaments.


I got the reindeer ornament in Alaska from the cruise I went on this past summer.


These are a variety of ornaments I got. I like the mosaic door knob.


This is a doll I got at a Victorian style boutique.


It's a purple bird happily perched on a branch.


I was surprised to find a tree topper so quickly. The angel has a pretty face and it's purple...need I say more!