Christmas cookie craziness!

The girls and I decided to make Christmas cookies this year. At first we were going to make the cookies from scratch but changed our minds since we had a dozen cakes to bake as well. I found some pre-cut sugar cookie dough at the store that was ready to bake. We also got a bunch of cookie icing and decorations. We sat for hours decorating some of the stupidest looking cookies ever but had such a blast doing it! We ate at least 6-8 as we decorated. We shared a lot of laughs and made a lot of mess. It was so much fun! I think we will make it a yearly tradition (not only during the holidays).

They look so pitiful!! hahaha!!!

Holiday teacher gifts

My last post was about baking mini pound cakes for the girls' teachers and here they are! I did not go with the lemon ones because I did not like how they turned out. I went with the one I made last year and whenever the name Paula Deen is mentioned you know it's going to be perfect!

They look a little rough but trust me they are so moist and rich. Dwayne was drooling over the little taste he got.

We wrapped them up in plastic wrap and then in decorative tissue paper along with a copy of the recipe inside.

I think they came out cute :) Here is the recipe I used....

Grandmother Paula's Sour Cream Pound Cake *Recipe courtesy of Paula Deen

Ingredients:

1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter
3 cups sugar
1 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 cups all-purpose flour
6 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together. Add the sour cream and mix until incorporated. Sift the baking soda and flour together. Add to the creamed mixture alternating with eggs, beating each egg 1 at a time. Add the vanilla and pour the mixture into a greased and floured 10-inch tube pan. Bake for 1 hour 20 minutes.

*NOTE: I used 7 mini loaf pans and baked for an hour instead.

Getting things together

This is going to be one of those very random posts so here I go... First of all I have made a decision to deactivate my Facebook account for at least a week. Most people are in shock and wonder why. It's simply for me to take a little more time to focus on everyday tasks as well as work on some things that I have neglected. I am assisting Dwayne with his business and I need to get a good sense of organization and planning. My office is in shambles so obviously I need to get cracking on that ASAP.

My toddler son is curious and very fast. I can't take my eye off of him for even a minute. He found a glass that way left out that contained a little bit of leftover adult beverage and thankfully it spilled before he could take a sip. That was a bit of an eye opener that once again organization is needed.

With Christmas on it's way I have all these lavish plans to bake bake bake. I plan to do just that. I had to come up with a good teacher gift idea for over 12 teachers that would not break the bank account. I decided on making some mini lemon pound cakes and presenting them nicely wrapped in cellophane and fancy tissue paper. I might even go the extra step of printing out homemade gift tags with the recipe attached. I will post photos once I complete them so you can see how they turned out. I might just post the recipe as well.

The biggest thing I want to do is take time daily to stop and smell the roses. Life is not as complicated as we make it. Simple is good :)

Wordless Wednesday

William sleeping on daddy's vent day chair :) and yes Tanyetta, he has his tongue sticking out just for you!

Family Photo

It is amazing that you can take over 2 dozen photos and ending up going with the first shot! It is very tough working with a toddler. Here is what we ended up with.