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Bonus Post: Story time, a cookie recipe and a craft

23 Dec
The Night Before The Night Before Christmas

A very funny story to read tonight!

It’s Friday night!! Even though we’re not doing Family Movie Night tonight, I do have a story for you: “The Night Before The Night Before Christmas,” a funny story by Natasha Wing, illustrated by Mike Lester.

This is a great story to read on Christmas Eve-Eve, different than your typical actual Night Before Christmas stories, which you can read tomorrow night.

In addition to reading, here’s a cookie recipe for you as well:

OATMEAL SCOTCHIES

INGREDIENTS

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp grd. cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
3/4 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cups packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups quick or oldfashioned oats
1 2/3 cup (or one 11 ounce bag) butterscotch chips

Oatmeal Scotchie Cookies

These use butterscotch chips and oatmeal. They're a yummy, crunchy cookie!

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a small bowl.

Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla in large mixing bowl.

Gradually beat in flour mixture.

Stir in oats and chips.

Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 7-8 minutes for chewier cookies, 9-10 for crispier cookies.

Cool on cookie sheet 2 minutes, transfer to rack to cool completely.

AND FINALLY……

If you’re looking for some fun, homemade ornament ideas to do during the day on Christmas Eve to help the kids pass the time on what can be a very long day, waiting for the “big event,” here is a collection of photos of some of my favorites from this year and years past. These make great last minute gifts or “tags” to add onto a gift package, or…to add to your tree!

handmade ornament using a container cover

My sister-in-law always makes a handmade ornament each year. This year she collected all kinds of covers, all year long, to create the ornaments.

Popsicle stick ornament

Here is the ornament Elizabeth brought home today, made out of popsicle sticks and paint.

Photo ornament

Caroline's second grade photo ornament using her school photo and a painted frame.

glitter ornament

A fun, easy ornament for young kids to make using glue, glitter and tissue paper.

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Your Tray or Mine: Kid’s Craft of the Day: Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments

13 Dec
Snickerdoodle Cookies

Yesterday's post was all about Snickerdoodle Cookies

Yesterday’s cookie tray recipe was for Snickerdoodles, a simple cinnamon-sugar cookie. Since we were already talking cinnamon, I decided to make today’s craft idea suggestion all about the cinnamon as well.

I personally have not yet made this craft with my kids, but I do have a funny story about it, which will also explain why I currently don’t have a photo for it either.

One year in preschool my daughter made these. They smell wonderful but are very delicate when they’re done.

The following year she was in kindergarten and was asked to bring an ornament to hang on the school bus, an annual tradition that the bus driver does. My daughter asked to bring her cinnamon ornament for the bus.

I told her to consider bringing in a different ornament, that this one was delicate and she should consider taking something more hardy to hang in the bus window. But, this was in her head that she was bringing in this ornament and no other, so against my better judgement I let her.

I’m sure you can guess the end of my story….and imagine the tears that flowed the day she had to get off the bus with only half an ornament left on the red yarn. I’m not very good about NOT saying “I told you so,” so I’m sure I uttered that a time or three.

In the meantime….here’s the recipe for Cinnamon Ornaments. There’s no baking involved! And a word of advice: Don’t bring them on the school bus.

Handmade Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments

Thanks to Sabrina J. for submitting some photos to go along with this recipe!

CINNAMON ORNAMENTS

Mix 3/4 to 1 cup of applesauce with one 4.12 oz. bottle ground cinnamon. It will form a stiff dough.

Roll out to 1/4″ thickness.

Cut into shapes with cookie cutters. Make a hole at the top with a straw for the ribbon.

Carefully put on a rack to dry.

Let air dry for several days, turning occasionally.

Makes 12 sweet-smelling ornaments, great for your tree or for gifts.

This recipe card that I have is old and faded, so I’ve had it a long time and it says “McCormick” the spice company, at the bottom, so this is their recipe.

Drying cinnamon ornaments

Here are Sabrina's ornaments as they were drying out. Thanks again!

If you have ever made these or if you decide after reading this to make these, take a photo of them, send it to me and I’ll add it here and to my Photos from Fans page as well. I’ll credit you with the photo credits! You can email it to me at jenniferlcowart@gmail.com.

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Where do you get your recipes?

10 Dec

I often get asked where I get my recipes from. So many of them are passed down to me from my mom, but even she had to get them from somewhere! Today, I thought I’d show you a few of the cookbooks that I’ve gotten these delicious dessert recipes from.

My dad's favorite, the Glazed Pineapple Cookies come from this cookbook.

This is an old cookbook that my mom has gotten some of her recipes from, including the Glazed Pineapple Cookies (coming up later this month.)

Lots of our recipes come from this cookbook!

You can see the Chocolate Krinkles right on the cover of the “Betty Crocker’s Cooky Book” cookbook. We get several of our recipes from here.

For Christmas a few years ago my mom gave me this copy, which is the “new” version.

Then for my birthday this past summer, my cousin Val gave me a “vintage” copy that she’d found in her travels, which made her think of me. So now I have both, with the vintage one being the exact same one my mom has.

I have had this one since before I was married. Not saying that's eon's ago, but still, a long time!

When I was teaching middle school one year, I got this “Favorite Brand Name Cookie Collection” cookbook from the “Book Man” who used to leave books in the faculty room for us to purchase. I then used it for a math lesson where we doubled a selection of the recipes (fractions) and made enough of them (measuring) for everyone to take some home. Hands on math…

I received this cookbook from a Stampin' Up! customer one Christmas and I've gotten one of my favorite recipes from it!

My Creamy Hot Chocolate recipe came out of the “Old Fashioned Holiday Recipes” cookbook! I make it at least once a week, so often that I keep the recipe right on my cabinet at all times (even though I could probably make it with my eyes shut by now.)

Strawberry Shortcake Holiday Treats Cookbook

Our Snickerdoodle Cookies recipe is out of this cookbook!

Our favorite recipe for Snickerdoodles comes from the girls’ cookbook, “Strawberry Shortcake Holiday Treats” and it’s super easy and delicious! They’ve tabbed a whole bunch of other recipes for us to try out in the future!

I’m sure there are several others to share so I’ll keep adding to this post as I go along with my recipe sharing, but for now, this will get you started in case you come across any of these cookbooks in your travels too!

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Crafts for Kids: Story for the day today: You Can Do It, Sam

7 Dec

Today I posted a recipe for my brother’s favorite cookies, Brown Eyed Susans and I talked about how each of us in our family has a favorite cookie on the trays so that you can’t ever think of leaving one out or someone will be disappointed.

As a kid, we lived on a “country road” where the houses were kind of spread apart and our neighbors were sometimes down a long and winding road, or in a house we couldn’t see, even though they were nearby. On Christmas Eve each year, my brother and I would walk up and down the road, up and down the long, winding driveways for hours, delivering our trays of cookies to our neighbors. Some of these people we wouldn’t see very often during the year, even though we were neighbors, but everyone knew that on Christmas Eve Chris and I would be coming around with the cookie trays.

Elephant Ears were always Mr. Lussier's favorite.

It would take us hours because it wasn’t just a drop and run, it was a stop, stay and chat, and watch as the neighbors would exclaim over the cookie trays because they’d been waiting all year for their favorite cookie. I remember our one neighbor, Mr. Lussier, his favorites were Elephant Ears, and my mom only made just so many of those so each tray would get ONE Elephant Ear. The Lussiers knew that one cookie belonged to Mr. Lussier. As labor-intensive as those were, we could never leave them out or Mr. Lussier would be disappointed.

These memories of delivering the cookies are so, so special to me, I almost get choked up as I type this. Many of those people are now long gone, and my parents have since moved as well, but the memories…they stay forever and every single year when I make my cookies, I think of them fondly. It gets me through those moments at midnight the week before Christmas when I think to myself, “Why the heck am I doing this again?” Then I remember how much these cookies mean to the people we give them to, and how much the memories mean to me as well.

Today’s story is one that was given to my kids for Christmas in 2008 by my brother Chris and his wife, Nina, so I thought it was only appropriate to share today. It’s called “You Can Do It, Sam,” by Amy Hest and illustrated by Anita Jeram. Ours even came with a plush of the main character, courtesy of the Kohl’s Cares for Kids program that year. It’s about a mother bear and her baby bear, Sam. Together they make many cakes for their neighbors on Plum Street. Together they bake and together they wait as the cakes finish. And then, together, they put the cakes into bags for their neighbors. Sam is now old enough to deliver the cakes to the neighbors himself, as his mom waits in the truck for him as he delivers all twelve cakes to his neighbors.

It’s such a special story and it is so special that it was given to us by my brother and his wife, because whether they knew it at the time or not, it invokes such special memories for me of our days together, delivering our cookies to our neighbors. It’s a book to teach my kids about the special meaning behind baking for others, behind giving a piece of yourself to others, and creating memories of our own as a family during a crazy holiday season.

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