After a brief reprieve the white stuff is flying again!  Snow, snow and more of the same.  It is cold and I miss the sun so much already.  The "old timers" say that this is the way winter always was prior to the 14 year drought, that is.

  (Anyway, it's not just the cold that is bad it's the fact that I dropped my digital camera right after the first of the year and wouldn't you know it; the last several storms have had the most beautiful perfect crystals which I would love to capture but alas!  No decent camera to shoot with.  I am crushed!  Hubby, however, blessed me with a replacement.  It doesn't have as good of a macro on it, but I am thankful for his thoughtfulness!)

I have also fallen down on the job of posting about Laura Ingalls Wilder this week.  However, if you go to my previous entries, I am SURE the links will keep you busy for days on end, so no worries here!

So much going on here and the kids are on a roll with so much baking and creating and learning that I am finding it very hard to catch up on my blogging! Since it is a Valentine Week, and that means it's time to get sentimental and gushy (or mushy, as my kids say,)  I do want to share something from my past with you!

  I grew up in a small town and went to school, K-12 with a group of kids that remained pretty much the same for most of those years.  I think there was a core of about 15 kids or so,  and we got to know each other pretty well as far as schoolmates go.

Every year in elementary school we had parties to celebrate each holiday that came our way.  I think we did the same thing every time too; read a story, do a craft, have a party of some sort.  One family in particular had a Mom who was an amazing cookie baker (among other things) and every holiday she would send a batch of her wonderful frosted sugar cookies with her daughter to class for us. 

These weren't your ordinary cookies.  These cookies were delicious, soft, melt-in-your-mouth tasty, and the frosting on the cake--I mean, cookie was the fact that she frosted them with equally wonderful frosting and each was decorated with each of our names!  She had a shape for each holiday and the Valentine's day cookies were huge lovely hearts!  She always packed them in a shirt box, with waxed paper between the layers of cookies so they wouldn't get smashed.  These cookies were bigger than your hand, and they were just perfect!

I was lamenting them several years ago and so you know what I did?  I called her up and asked her for her recipe!  She seemed surprised to hear from me and thought it was funny that I wanted her cookie recipe.  But she put her finger right one it (I am pretty sure she had it committed to memory) and we had a lovely visit. 

So she shared her recipe with me and I am posting it here for you.  I have no idea where the original recipe is from.  She called them "Crisp Sugar Cookies" but when you frost them, they become very soft and like I said, they melt in your mouth.  The secret to their wonderful flavor is the vanilla and lemon extract.  :)

Mrs. Roger’s Sugar Cookies

(Crisp Sugar Cookies)

½ C. Sugar

1 C. Shortening

(cream together, then add:)

2 eggs

3 TBSP Evaporated Milk

1 tsp Vanilla

½ tsp Lemon Extract

(mix well then add to:)

3 C. Flour

½ tsp Baking Soda

½ tsp Salt

Make the cookie dough and chill for a little while, roll out and cut out shapes,

Bake at 350 for 8 minutes or so, 'till slightly brown on edges.  Cool and frost.

Frosting:

½  tsp Lemon Extract

1 tsp Vanilla

Add to regular frosting recipe,

(powdered sugar, butter and milk.)

Whip 'till fluffy, add coloring if you want to and VIOLA!

You know, just as this precious Mom wrote our names on cookies, the Lord himself has written your name on His heart!  Is your name written is His book too?

Nancy

Homeschooling Is Life!

© Nancy K. Baetz 2007 

 Revelation 21:23-27 And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed; and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it; and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.