Holiday Cookie Recipe Exchange!

Happy Holidays to all of you! I love to bake during the holidays. It is a tradition in my family, I have great memories from when I was growing up. We had a schedule on the bulletin board so everyone knew what their jobs where for the baking process. We boxed them and passed them out to friends and family. I still do that with my daughter and I love to give out cookies to our friends. I am hoping you might share some recipes on your blogs so we can all try each others treats. I am going to start with cut-out sugar cookies. They do take a little extra work and time, but it is so worth it and these are delicious.

Sugar Cookies:
1 cup softened butter
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp. baking soda

Mix together and form dough into a ball. Cover tightly and refrigerate for 2 or 3 hours to get it firm. I use a combination of powdered sugar and flour to roll them out in. I take a handful of dough and roll out and use my favorite cookie cutters. Keep the dough covered when you are rolling out the cookies. Don't let it dry out.
Place them on a cookie sheet and use colored sugar or sprinkles to decorate them.

Bake for 8-10 minutes until the bottoms are lightly browned

I love these cookies, they are so pretty in a gift box and they are so good and melt in your mouth. Sometimes(when I am patient enough) I leave them plain for baking and frost and decorate them. I use a sugar substitute as my husband is diabetic and they taste just as good.

God bless you all and go bake some cookies!

Anne

Friends!!

I have been lucky to meet so many wonderful people through blogging. Beth gave me this award. Thank you and please go and visit her blogs Thru My Looking Glass where she shares great photography, stories and recipes and Dory's Backyard. Dory and Bilbo are Sasha's pals and they are adorable and have great adventures. I have loved getting to know her through blogging and look forward to her posts. If you don't know her, please take a look, you will be happy you did. Here are the Rules for this award:
1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award.

2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.

3. Link to the person who nominated you for this award.

4. Name 7 things about yourself that people may not know.

5. Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers.

6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.

7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they've been nominated.

I am not much for the rules, but I will tell you 7 things about me.

1. I am a certified Medical Assistant, but have not worked in that field for a few years.

2. I love movies, horror, mystery and suspense are my favorites.

3. My favorite Disney movie of all time is Beauty and the Beast, I love stories about inner beauty.

4. Like Beth I am also a big fan of Finding Nemo, my daughter and I have watched that movie so many times I am not even sure how many, she is 24 and we love it. Dory is my favorite, I have her hanging on my rear view mirror in my car.

5. I am a baseball fan, Detroit Tigers are my boys.

6. I love to cook and bake and am almost daily entering contests. So far, no luck, but I don't give up.

7. I am a homebody. I would rather be home with my family then any place else.

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Here is where I am kind of breaking the rules. I always have a hard time knowing who to pass it on to, so if you don't have this award, please grab it. To all of my followers, thank you for your friendship and God bless you all.

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My friend Kris at Hands, House, and Heart Full made me my very own button!! Please go and visit her if you haven't already. She has the most beautiful family. Her blog is a blast, she has great advice and give aways. She is a great person and a friend. Thanks Kris.

I love, love, love baking for the holiday's. I am going to start a cookie recipe exchange this week. I hope you will join me and share your own recipes if you will. It is a way we can reach out to each other and share our lives.

Thank you again to everyone. Anne

Retro Tuesday All Week Long

Please visit The Crazy Suburban Mom for Retro Tuesday All Week Long. This is a wonderful blog and I love Retro Tuesday.

I have always loved this meme and this is the first time I finally got something together that I hope fits in with it. On a recent visit to an apple orchard I found some wonderful things in the barn with the cider and donuts. We devoured the donuts and then took some pictures
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The first one is retro in that, it has been many many years since my butt could fit in one of these school desks.
All kinds of old tools on the walls, because I am somewhat clumsy, that is as close as I want to get to those saws.
I wonder if this became obsolete when gas prices went up.

This old stove really intrigued me. I love to cook and bake and just imagining what must have come out of those doors. Homemade breads, cakes, cookies, raccoons. I especially loved the setting on the stove. Set it and good luck lol.

Celibacy can be a choice in life, or a condition imposed by circumstances

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While attending a Marriage Encounter weekend, Tom and his wife Charlotte listened to the instructor declare, 'It is essential that husbands and wives know the things that are important to each other.'He addressed the men, 'Can you name and describe your wife's favorite flower?'Tom leaned over, touched Charlotte 's arm gently and whispered, 'It's Pillsbury All-Purpose, isn't it?

'And thus began Tom's life of celibacy

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Have a great week. Anne

Farmers Market Challenge and Photo Challenge

Thanks to Judy at The Road to Here for another great Farmers' Market Challenge. Please go and visit for more wonderful people sharing local bounty. I copied the following from Judy because I love her wording.
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"Welcome to the November Edition of the Farmers' Market Challenge. This is our Harvest Festival!The purpose of this challenge is to raise awareness for purchasing locally produced foods. Be it fruits, vegetables, dairy products, meat, or any related items we want to know what's available where you live."


The weather in Michigan has been beautiful this past weekend. My family and I took a ride to a local orchard for some fresh apples, cider and of course warm homemade donuts.

We chose the apples already picked, but if you were interested you could pick your own. They had a nice variety. We took home some red delicious and macintosh.

I thought this was too much fun. I wasn't about to climb up there with my bad back, but there were lots of little ones getting pictures taken on it.

There was a nice little area with goats to feed and pet.

Thank so much to Judy for sponsoring these great Farmers' Market Challenges. What a great way to encourage us to enjoy local products.

Anne

Tuesday Tips

I found this in a newsletter I get from the ASPCA. I thought it was important, because even if you don't have pets, the consequences can affect us all. Please follow the link to email your Senator, it is so easy to do and only takes a minute of your time. Thank you Please visit Kris at Hands, House, and Heart Full for more important tips and info. She has someamazing ideas for fabric softener sheets."Dear Animal Advocates, Championed for over 10 years by the late Senator Edward Kennedy, the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA) is a federal bill that would phase out the common practice of constantly feeding antibiotics to food animals when they aren’t sick. Large-scale livestock and poultry producers have become overly reliant on antibiotics. By keeping animals on these drugs all the time, factory farms can become ever more overcrowded and unsanitary while circumventing the disease outbreaks that these poor conditions ordinarily would produce. Therefore, curbing the use of antibiotics may prove to be an incentive to raise animals using more humane and sustainable methods.

This is not only an animal welfare issue, however: it is also an issue of human health. Scientists agree that the overuse of antibiotics in animal agriculture is contributing to the increase in antibiotic-resistant human diseases. These illnesses are especially costly and difficult to treat. What You Can DoVisit the ASPCA Advocacy Center online to email your U.S. senators and representative urging them to support and cosponsor the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act. You may use the same link to read about this legislation in greater depth. "

Have a great week Anne