cookies

I love cookies. They are one of my favorite treats. You can have one if you want something sweet but are not in the mood for a lot of sugar or half a dozen if you want a sugar rush. You can serve them with milk or hot chocolate or they are just as good with with water or kool-aid when you're on a picnic. They are hand held and already portioned as a single serving food for little ones. And they come in more varieties than any other food I know.

All that being said, I have a new favorite cookie. Now chocolate chip is the standard. I make those at least once a week or so. I love them and will always love them and nothing will replace them, but when I want to make something different, well....I make things up. I actually just find recipes I think sound good then I tweak them a little to what I like. My chocolate covered cherry cookies used to be my favorite (a basic koolaid cookie recipe using cherry flavor then dipping them in melted chocolate after baking and cooling). However I found a recipe that I modified so I will share with you my version along with a few variations I've tried.

Coconut Almond Cookies

1 cup butter softened
3/4 cup superfine ( I use regular granulated) sugar
1 egg yolk slightly beaten
1 tsp Almond extract
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
pinch of salt
1 cup coconut
chopped, slivered or sliced almonds are optional, I usually don't have them so I do with out, they do make a nice touch when you've got them though.

Put butter and sugar in a bowl and mix well. Beat in egg yolk and almond extract. Add flour and salt, add coconut and mix until thoroughly combined.

Scoop up tablespoons of the mixture and roll into balls, flatten somewhat and bake at 375 for 12-15 minutes.

These are not a super sweet cookie and my favorite thing about these is what you can do with them.

Make a hollow with your thumb and put a small dollop of your favorite jam in before baking or I added lemon curd (basically lemon pie filling) then after baking when they had cooled I drizzled some with melted white chocolate and dusted others with powdered sugar. ( Those I called "Sunrise in Paradise".

Or take half the dough and add 1 tablespoon of unsweetened baking cocoa and mix well take a small scoop of each of the regular and chocolate doughs, make balls then put them together and flatten Jonas calls them "Yin Yang" cookies because that's just about what they look like. I just call them "chocolate almond coconut cookies" although Jonas' name is shorter.

You can also just brush a powder sugar glaze (3/4 cup powdered sugar, 2 tbs melted butter, 1 tbs milk) over the top of the plain cookie. This makes them a little sweeter and adds a nice shine.

Anyway there you go. Remember there is a cookie for any occasion, call me, I'll help you find it or make it up.

I posted something

I finally added something to my blog, but since I uploaded the pictures a few months ago the date on the post is then and not yesterday so on the little tracker things it doesn't show that I posted recently hence the reason for this post.

christmas

Ok so here's Christmas




The kids waiting for Dad to read the Christmas story from the scriptures. Notice the stockings have already been unloaded then put back.
A picture of the tree. The longer it was up the fewer the ornaments that actually stayed on the tree.


Dad getting ready to start reading.
The kids began to get a little impatient. But filled in the blanks in Luke 2.
"What? It's in the Book of Mormon too?" Baby Santa Maggie just gave up and decided the ceiling fan was interesting.
Daddy gets to play Santa.


Adam with his new Bike.Maggie trying to open a present. She got bored pretty fast and decided breakfast sounded better.I didn't get any pictures of the other kids opening presents because it got crazy really fast. However, it was a wonderful Christmas! We drove up and saw the Guffey Clan later on. It started snowing and the roads were bad so we didn't get to go see Grandma Peggy. But we talked on the phone and it was still a Merry Christmas.

Thanksgiving

Since I haven't posted in months here are some random pictures . We'll start with Thanksgiving first at Nana and Poppa's then on to Grandma Peggy's.

We spent lots of time playing with cousins

And of course eating. The dessert table was as full as the regular food table...as it should be.
And of course lots of friends and family, and a few missionaries for good measure.
We stopped and said hi to Grandpa Bill and yes, if you've noticed the date on my camera I forgot to reset it so these really are recent and not from 2007.
We got to see Bill and Linda.
And our family is finally too big to fit on Grandma's couch for pictures. We're going to have to start standing up or something.

And of course Cindy Marie and Matt and Will were there.
All in all a great Thanksgiving!
Coming soon.....CHRISTMAS! (In July probably, but I'll work on it.)

And it Begins....

And so begins our boys' wrestling season. Their first meet was last weekend and they did very well. Here they are showing off their singlets with their friend Tai before any of them wrestled.
Most of my pictures are either dark or blurry or so far away you can't see much. I still haven't figured out how to do any photo editing on my computer. So anyway here are a couple pics of the boys starting out.Of course we all came to watch. Adam and Maggie like the lower level seating.While the other girls, Emily, Odie and Lydia preferred higher up on the bleachers.

The boys did very well. Jonas won 2 matches by pin and lost 3 on points. Preston pinned one and got pinned once. Jonas ended up coming in fourth in his weight class and Preston second in his. I can't believe how much they improved since last year. It was so much fun to watch and I can't wait for the rest of the season.

Halloween

Ok so we got a little busy and I forgot to take pictures until after we were done trick or treating. Our neighborhood sanctioned Saturday night trick or treating which worked out very well for us. So here are the kids.
Emily was the Greek goddess Athena.
Jonas was a demigod from Camp Half-blood (greek battle armor yet no tunic/dress) check out the Percy Jackson books for more details on what that all entails.
Adrianna was a garden fairy but she had already shed her wings and wig and cute little fairy hat.
Preston was an indian/knight he had already taken off the breast plate, shield, helmet, cowboy boots and sword, but he still had his indian shirt.
Lydia was also a fairy her color theme was purple though.
Adam was Yoda and by the time this picture was taken Jason had dubbed him "bloody Yoda" although that is chili that dripped down his front not blood. He had also managed to lose his light saber by this time.
There are not any pictures of Mags at the moment. I will put the Tigger outfit back on her and take a picture tomorrow but I didn't realize we hadn't gotten one of her until it was too late. Everyone got lots of candy and we gave out lots as well so all in all I call it a successful night. We hope y'all had a good Halloween too!

A conversation with Adam and Lydia

"MAAAAAAAAAMMMMMAAAAAAAAAA"


"MAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMAAAAAAA!"

"Adam! are you OK? What's wrong?"
"Wydia caw me name." *sniffle* *sniffle*
"Lydia called you a name?"
"Yeah"
"Lydia, come here please... What did she call you?"
"Say" *sniffle*
Say? Ok I know that's not right, "Tell me again what did she call you?"
"Say"
Oh, good she's here, "Lydia, Adam says you called him a name. "
"No I didn't"
"Ok then what did you say to him?"
"I told him 'No way Jose!' "
Jose... Say...now I get it.