Momma's Sugar Cookies - Blog Style

My mom made these cookies alot when I was a little girl. They are the best sugar cookies I've ever had to date if made correctly. Today Kelsey asked if we could make them, and so, here we are. I figured it could be a cooking lesson and photography lesson all together.

The recipe goes something like this: Grab your little helper. She will be doing all the work and licking the bowl.


Gather all your ingredients. You will need sugar, butter, Crisco, eggs, buttermilk, baking soda, salt, vanilla and flour.


For the first part of the recipe you will need sugar, butter and Crisco.


First you need to either leave the butter get to room temperature or cheat and use the microwave at a power level of around 50% to get your butter to soften. I usually heat it at 50% for about 35 seconds. Whatever works.


Add the sugar to the mixing bowl


Next in goes the Crisco (this should already be room temperature unless for some strange reason you keep your Crisco in the refridgerator, lol)


Now add the softened butter (And that's real butter, not lowfat or margarine. REAL butter, yum)


Mix it up good


Then you want to add your eggs. Just dump them all in there.


Add your salt


And vanilla and mix it all up. Now here is where you want to taste it if you like sweet yummy goodness. Once you add the baking soda and buttermilk it starts to look, well, kinda gross.


Ok, in a separate bowl add buttermilk





Baking soda




Mix it together and let it sit for a few minutes (it will expand so make sure you use a larger bowl than what it fits in)


Pour this buttermilk/baking soda mixture into your first mixture




Mix it up and then look at it. It looks nasty doesn't it. It almost look like it's curdled. Maybe it is.


Now measure out your flour and then sift it. (My mamma always does it this way.) Dump your flour in the mixture a little at a time.


Mix - make sure you scrape your mixing bowl - don't be like me


Look through your cupboards (all the way in the back) is where you will find the best cookie toppings. I have to keep mine back there or I'll I mean the kids will eat them. Find what you have. If you don't have any you can just use plain old sugar. Tastes the same it just doesn't look as pretty.


Have your daughter take a picture of you taking a picture of the next set of ingredients (after all this was a photography lesson too right?)


Back to the recipe now. Some of you will need to spray your pans or put a thin layer of oil on. I don't think I need to so I'm not.

For big sugar cookies you will use a lot of batter. I'm talking a big Tablespoon full of the stuff.


Look what I found. I forgot that I bought some big sugar crystals at Wal-Mart a few months ago. It's good I hid them in the back of the cupboard or they would have been gone.


Everybody's favorite




Bake


And you know - every kids favorite part:


And every Mom's favorite part, UGH!!!!


You should bake them until they are just a little bit tan around the edges.


These cookies are great with hot chocolate or chocolate milk. Yummmm meeee! Hope you make them and love them.


Mom's Sugar Cookies - 350 degree oven
4 cups sugar
1 cup butter
1 cup crisco
4 eggs
2 cups buttermilk
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
8 cups of flour sifted

Mix the sugar, butter and crisco. Add eggs. Mix well. Add salt and vanilla. Mix. Buttermilk and baking soda should be mixed together in a seperate bowl and allowed to sit for a few minutes. Add the buttermilk mixture to the sugar mixture and mix well. Add flour gradually. Grease pans - only as needed.
One rounded Tablespoon for large cookie. Sprinkle with sugar before baking.

Breakfast and a To Do List

I woke up this morning to Scrambled Eggs and a To Do list. It seems Kelsey had the whole day planned out for us. She is so cute. She made me breakfast and cleaned up her mess. She also decided that today we will be making sugar cookies, doing some scrapbooking and making rice pudding. Should be a great day.

I love this kid!

Homecoming

Ok, it seems like I just had my babies yesterday. Now I got two old enough to get all dressed up and go to their high school Homecoming. Come on. Slow down, life, will ya?
I know that these two are good looking kids, but my gosh, they looked gorgeous tonight. Well everyone did actually, not just my two, but I'm a mom and I'm aloud to say and think that. Love ya Tyler and Sara - You really did look amazing. You clean up well, lol.

Did you see that dress and those heels? I think we need to re-think that "locking her in the closet until she's 35 thing" Don't you?
Oh and a side note here - Tyler is wearing his Dad's Army dress shoes from 20 years ago. You would've never known it if I hadn't told ya.


We were running out of daylight here and it was threatening rain. I really wish I would have had more time to get better pictures, but at least I have pictures right?




I love, love, love this one. I can't believe she's not freaking out that he'll mess up her hair, lol.


My "little" man


My "little" girl


Tyler and his sweetie, Tiffany. She is such a pretty girl.




Brooke, Kayli, Allie and Sara




this is one of my favorites of the four girls. There's more behind the story though. This picture is funny to me because Kayli lost one of her shoes at the dance. How the heck does a girl just lose one of her shoes? It was pretty funny seeing her come out of the dance with only one shoe. She even went back in and looked for it with no luck. She said she is gonna put up signs in the school for her missing shoe! She is a funny girl. So if anyone see's a missing little black high heel it's Kayli's.

Field Hockey

Sara was in Field Hockey again this year. This is her first year of high school and she really enjoyed the times with her team. I think she was able to make a lot of friends and learn alot from the older teammates. One thing I can say about this team is they believe in treating eachother with respect. Oh, and they were awesome on the field too.


It's cold on the bench waiting to play


This day in particular was very cold, but it sure had some beautiful light to photograph










They did end up winnin alot of the games they played.




One thing I don't like about Field Hockey is the stick. Sara got hit in the face with one. Ouch! I got a call on my way home from work that I needed to come and get Sara and take her to the health center for X-rays. I was pretty worried by the time I got there. She turned out to be fine, but for the next couple days she had a black eye and a cut beside her nose. She ended up having to have an MRI because they found a small abnormality on the X-ray but the MRI turned up nothing.
Just a couple days before Sara got hit in the face, her Big Sister (Field Hockey Senior) was also hit and broke her nose. Here's a picture of them together. In this light you cannot see the bruising but believe me it was there. It had started to fade away by this time also.


And just because I like "Silly" here's another one:


Sara I hope you have a great season next year. Go get 'em!

Halloween

So this year Halloween was a drag. Mikey was sick all week with swine flu and by Thursday night I thought he was ready to go back to school the next day. I figured I would take him and Kelsey trick or treating. Around here there are little towns everywhere and they each have a different night each year for the event. Usually we go into New Bloomfield, but this year we couldn't do that since Homecoming fell on the night that NB was having trick or treat. I decided to take them into Landisburg. The kids were dressed and ready to go so we head on over. We get there and NOTHING. I had the wrong night, so I say to the kids that we could drive on over to Blain which is another 15-20 minutes up the road. We are already running late and we get there and the sidewalks are packed with little monsters and princesses. I think we were so late that most of the houses ran out of candy by now. The kids only got a handful of candy (which is fine by me!!). I could tell by the way people were sitting on the sidewalks that there was gonna be a parade. Jeesh, where I grew up the parade was great! Not here. No how! This parade was so puny and quick. But the kids did get more candy that was thrown to them from all the floats and fire trucks passing by. They thought that was kinda cool. I am guilty to say that I've never taken them to a parade here in Perry County. When I was a kid I just had to walk down the street a few blocks to enjoy the parade, but here in the country you need to drive for miles to see the parades and they aren't that impressive anyway.
By the time we got back home Mikey was so weak and tired that I knew then that we should have just stayed home. He ended up staying home from school one more day.
Here are some pictures from the night:




I love when I catch Sara smiling at her little bro like this:





Kelsey has a thing for Spiderman, lol.


By this time Mikey was tired of wearing his Gene Simmons wig so Kelsey decided it made her look cool.


And of course, what would this post be without a picture of the Swine Flu?


Kelsey and I made these great little candies for her Halloween party for school. They are quick and easy. Here's what you do. Unwrap a bag of Hershey Kisses. Put one on top of a pretzel wheel.


Put them in the oven at a real low temperature until they get just a little shiny. It doesn't take long. Next is the fun part. Push an M&M on top of the Hershey Kiss and refridgerate until the chocolate is firm. They are just the right amount of sweet and salty and before you know it, you've eaten ten of them so watch out.

the color is a little off on these because of the new energy saving lights I have in my kitchen but you get the idea.

Fall

At the end of a long Summer the kids go back to school.




One or more of them is bound to get sick.


The farmers cut down their corn, a chill fills the air and all of a sudden something terrible happens.


It's Ladybug Hell.




Here's a close up of the dirt they leave behind year after year after year.

Now, when I was a little girl, I loved ladybugs. Needless to say: Not anymore!!!

But with Fall comes something beautiful also. The colors. I love the colors of Fall.








And with the Fall we've had some stormy weather. Our side yard filled with water the other day. I remember a few years ago, when we still had the ducks, they would swim in our side yard. lol.











With Fall comes the realization that Winter is fast on it's tail. Oh how I hate winter. I hope we have a nice warm long Fall ahead of us. I sure do wish I could hibernate.