Fall Cookies and Shopping

Today was my annual fall cookie-making day. Last year, I spent 7 hours in my kitchen, making cookies and decorating them all by myself. But this year, I was smart. Not only did I bake all of the cookies two days ahead of time, but I also recruited help. Thanks, Sarah!

Sarah came over on Thursday night to bake all the cookies with me. Then she came back this morning to help me decorate. And it only took us 3 hours to complete them all! We felt like regular Suzie Homemakers! ;-)We made pumpkins, apples, squirrels, acorns, and leaves. And most of them turned out pretty cute, if I do say so myself! Toward the end, though, we got kind of tired of decorating, and we got to the point where we were just slopping on some frosting in whatever color was left and smearing it around. That always seems to happen on those last few cookies!

I think the jack-o-lanterns are my favorites.

After all of that madness was done with, I went out for the afternoon/evening with my mom and sister. We went shopping all over the place, but we started out at White House (yay!) No doughnuts today, but I did end up buying some of this crazy caramel apple candy corn and fresh kettle corn. They were having some kind of fall festival there today or something, and there were people everywhere, and there was so much going on! We didn't stay for long, but it was fun to stop by for a little while.We then headed out to some of my favorite stores including: Hobby Lobby, JoAnn Fabrics, and TJ Maxx Home Goods. We also went to Gabriel Brothers, which I usually don't care for because I don't have the patience for it, but I ended up finding a pair of gray flats there that fit like a glove. And they cost $7! I wear a size 5, so that just never happens!

I bought way too many things today including some more fall decorative items, some new clothes, and this awesome sign that I will hang above our bed. I've been looking for something to hang there for a long time!

After our long day of shopping, we were absolutely famished! And truthfully, my lunch consisted of a few cookies, so I was especially hungry. You have to get rid of the mess-ups somehow, right? ;-) Anyway, it was freezing and rainy and dreary out, so we thought Panera would be the perfect place for dinner. We all got soup, and Julie and I got bread bowls, and it was absolutely heavenly on a day like today!My baked potato soup was delicious! And the sourdough bread bowl was even more delicious.

After dinner, we called it a night and headed home. I had the busiest, craziest week, so today was the perfect way to end it. I had so much fun! And it's starting to get really cold, and the leaves are changing here. I couldn't be happier :-)

Have a happy Saturday!!

Merry Christmas!!

That was the front of our Christmas card this year! I can finally post it :-) I had a lot of fun designing it in Digital Image Pro, but I might go with something more handmade next year. Not sure yet. I guess I can decide when the time comes! :-)

I think I can officially say I'm done with my holiday baking. I used the gingerbread house kit that my sister-in-law got me for Christmas to bake and decorate my last few cookies. I had so much fun with it, and can't wait to break it out again next year! :-)

Hey look! It's us! ;-)

Well I am off to clean up my kitchen, get ready for the Christmas Eve service, and the three parties we have to try to make tonight!

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas! Have fun with family and friends, and don't forget what this season is REALLY about.

"While You were Sleeping" by Casting Crowns

Oh little town of Bethlehem
Looks like another silent night.
Above your deep and dreamless sleep
A giant star lights up the sky.

And while you're lyin' in the dark,
There shines and everlasting light.
For the king has left his throne
And is sleeping in a manger tonight.

Oh Bethlehem, what you have missed while you were sleeping!
For God became a man, stepped into your world today.
Oh, Bethlehem, you will go down in history
As a city with no room for its king
While you were sleeping

Oh little town of Jerusalem
Looks like another silent night.
The father gave his only son,
The Way, The Truth, The Life had come.
But there was no room for him
In the world he came to save.

Jerusalem, what you have missed while you were sleeping!
The Savior of the world is dying on your cross today.
Jerusalem, you will go down in history
As a city with no room for its king.
While you were sleeping.

United States of America
Looks like another silent night.
As we're sung to sleep by philosophies
That save the trees and kill the children.
And while we're lying in the dark,
There's a shout heard across the Eastern sky.
For the bridegroom has returned
And has carried his bride away in the night.

America, what will we miss while we are sleeping?
Will Jesus come again and leave us slumbering where we lay?
America, will we go down in history
As a nation with no room for its king?
Will we be sleeping?

United States of America
Looks like another silent night.

Christmas Diaries Day 19: COOKIES!

Okay, so I skipped day 18. I'm getting burned out on this whole "Christmas Diaries" thing!!

Today I headed over to my mother-in-law's house at around 11. I spent the day there baking and decorating TONS of cookies with my mother-in-law, Patty, and two sisters-in-law, Maria and Diana. I believe we worked for about five hours in all, with a short break for lunch. We made peanut blossoms, snickerdoodles, tons of sugar cookies, and Patty made some shortbread at the end of the day which was AMAZING.

We naturally spent most of the time decorating our sugar cookies. I think we did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself ;-)

Here are Diana and Maria decorating away...and you can see Patty in the background cleaning up our huge mess :-)
I can't remember how many cookies we decorated in all, but it was a lot!!
I think our favorite things to decorate were the gingerbread people.
Diana just had to have surgery on her ankle, so she made a little gingerbread person with a cast, plus a doctor to go with it...too cute!
And then I made this little gingerbread man and Di made this gingerbread woman, and we just thought they looked like a gingerbread couple :-)
"Not my gumdrop buttons!" (If you've seen Shrek, that should make sense :-P) Maria made these
I really liked this ornament made by Maria
I think my favorite one that I made was my "W" stocking
It was a lot of fun!!!
And I even got to open a Christmas present early from Di, because it is something I can only use at Christmastime. I'll share more about that later this week :-)

And tomorrow is the big Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert! So on Monday I should have LOTS of pictures to share from that. Can't wait!!

Oh, and did I mention MAX is coming to stay with me for a few days starting TOMORROW?!?! I'm sooo excited! :-D

Fall Cookie Day!

My back hurts

There is frosting on my shirt

My hands (and tongue :-P) are stained with food coloring

Yep...it's cookie baking/decorating day!

This morning when I began working on my fall cookies, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I used this tutorial I found online on how to decorate sugar cookies with royal icing. The recipe for the cookies and the icing came from that page. It looked simple enough, and there were step-by-step directions. How hard could it be?

What I wasn't prepared for was the fact that the cookies would take 7 hours to complete. Granted, I can be a little slow with things like this b/c I tend to be a little OCD :-P And I had to stop a few times and lie down because I'm still not feeling well (Remember how I supposedly ate bad chicken last Saturday? Yeah, well it turns out it wasn't the chicken. I've had a mild case of the stomach flu for SEVEN DAYS! Not fun. But I think it has just about run it's course. And just so I don't get 50 comments asking if I'm pregnant...I'm NOT. 100% sure! :-)). But anyway, yeah. they took FOREVER. I wish I had baked the cookies earlier in the week so all I had to do was decorate them today. But I just never found time, plus all I wanted to do was lie around all week since I was sick.

I can't believe how few cookies the recipe actually made since it feels like I cut out and decorated about 500 of them! I think it's my fault that it didn't make too many because I have a tendency to not roll my dough out thin enough. I'll try to do better next time! Both the cookies and the icing ended up tasting really delicious, though! And the icing was so easy to work with, and so easy to make! I'll definitely be making it again for Halloween and Christmas :-)

So anyway, enough talk. Here are some pictures of my day! It cracks me up that the lighting changes so much throughout the pictures because it was 11:00 or 12:00AM when I started, and about 7:00PM (DARK) when I finished! I told you it took forever ;-)

I set up what I like to call a "baking studio" in the kitchen. which just means I cleared everything off of the counter, moved the table to the middle of the room, put my computer in there to easily access both recipes, and hung a trash bag on the outside of the waste basket for convenience :-)
While I was cutting cookies out of the dough, I had the genius idea of making it look like this apple had a bite taken out of it. That's about as far as my creativity goes :-P
Two hours later, the cookies were finally cut out, baked, and cooled. The table then became the decorating station
The first step in decorating the cookies was to pipe a border onto each cookie, creating a little boundary line for later on when I flooded the cookies. this took approximately 7 years to complete ;-)
Next I added more water to the frosting, put it in a squeeze bottle, and flooded the cookies. Then I had to take a tooth pick and smooth out the watery frosting and make sure it reached the edges. This took even longer than piping the borders.
And last but not least, I added fun little details.

And without further adieu, here are my completed cookies!
Yep, that's really all I made in 7 hours!

Lots of leaves (HATING the lighting in these pictures. It was dark by this time):
And apples (my bitten apple makes a second appearance while another one has a worm crawling out):
My personal favorite...squirrels and acorns
Can't forget about the pumpkins and Jack-o-Lanterns!

So it was a fun day! Luke decided not to decorate any because I think he thought the whole process was just too time-consuming. Maybe next time he will :-)

Luke was really sweet tonight since I wasn't feeling well. I told him I'd rather just stay in and relax tonight. So Luke went out to Subway and brought us supper. I hadn't eaten all day because I was just a little nervous to, but luckily it tasted great and I still feel fine :-) Also, we both just got really into The Office, so yesterday Luke borrowed the first four seasons on DVD from a guy at work. I plan on just relaxing and watching them for the rest of the evening. I love lazy fall Saturday nights! This is what weekends are supposed to be like :-)

I better get going...I have a disastrously messy kitchen to tend to. Seriously, it looks like a tornado went through!