Christmas goodies in the mail!!!

12 days of Christmas packages and wonderful Santa ATC from Syd!!!!

Here's what I've been doing lately

Putting up my Christmas village

Sending off some swaps!!!!

Thinking about.... getting a tree, putting up lihgts, and baking more cookies!!!

Holiday Baking

I've actually started baking cookies.....My son's girlfriend and I spent a Sunday making 4 different kinds of cookies. This one was my favorite and I will definately make more.

CHAI SHORTBREAD

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/8 tsp. salt
1/8 ground cardamom\1/8 tsp. cinnamon
dash of cloves
dash of freshly ground pepper
3/4 cup powdered sugar
10 tbl. butter,softened
1 tbl. ice water

1. lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour and next 5 ingredients(through pepper), stirring well with whisk. Place sugar and butter in a meduim bowl; beat with a mixer at medium at medium speed until light and fluffy. Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture, beating at low speed just until combined(mixture will appear crumbly). Sprinkle dough with 1 tablespoon ice water; toss with a fork. Divide dough in half. Shape dough into 2 (6-inch logs: wrap each log in plastic wrap. Chill 1 hour or so until firm.
2. Preheat oven to 375

3. Unwrap dough logs. Crafefully cut each log into 18 slices using a serrated knife. Place dough circles 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Bake at 375 for 10 min. cool on pans 5 minutes. Remove cookies from pans: cool completely on wire racks. Yeild: 3 dozen

(from Cooking Light Dec.07)

Try This!!

Pumpkin Dip

8 oz. room temp. cream cheese
2 cups powdered sugar
15 oz can of pumpkin
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t ginger

Serve with Trader's Joe's triple ginger snaps!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

12 Days of Christmas

I'm currently in a 12 Days of Christmas and I sent my package out yesterday. Here's a picture of my gifts all wrapped and ready!

Day of the Dead ATC's

Here are a few of my ATC's I did for a swap on http://www.atccards.com/. It was my first swap with them, I usually swap through http://www.swap-bot.com/, but someone in my monthly journaling group thought this was a good group, so I thought I'd try it. The swap was for a Day of the Dead chunky book.!

The Girls-4 Generations

My daughter just came home for a brief visit and right before she went home we actually had a chance to snap a photo of all the girls in the family....4 generations. The camera was on time delay...that's why we all look alittle surprised!

Jeffrey(Dr. Soul) playing some mean blues with his band FISHTRAP!!!

My friend Lori AND I watching Jeffrey's band!!!

Old Friends!!!

I took a short trip down to Olympia last week-end and re-connected with some old friends. What can I say......it was so wonderful to see them again. It's been about 5 years.......but it really seemed like yesterday when we were together. Here's a couple pictures.

Ally the Little Witch!!!

Halloween!!!

Since Halloween is my favorite Holiday, I thought it would be a perfect day to start a blog. My friend, Gail was going to help me, but I wanted to surprise her. I really don't know what I'm doing....and I didn't think I would ever start a blog....but things change....so here I am!!! As soon as I firgure out how to add pictures(it will probaly be with Gail's help) and will post pics of some Halloween fun!!! Okay...so here I am!!!! Happy Halloween! Betsey