Saturday, December 29, 2018

Chocolate Gingerbread Rollout #cookies #recipe

We're not done with celebrations. We have New Years Eve, and New Years Day to celebrate!

I decided to make Chocolate Gingerbread Rollout Cookies to celebrate! 


They are super easy to make!

Start out by setting out 2 sticks of unsalted butter and 1 egg. They need to be room temperature.

Use a mixer to combine the 2 sticks of unsalted butter, 1 egg, 1/2 cup granulated sugar and 1/2 cup brown sugar.


Add In:

  • 1/4 cup molasses
  • 2 Tablespoons of melted Chocolate Chips
  • 3 cups of all purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup cocoa powder
  • 1/2 Tablespoon Ground Ginger
  • 1/2 Tablespoon Cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon Salt
Keep mixing until everything is mixed together throughly.


Chill:

Cover the dough, and put it in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.

Roll Them Out:

Flour a clean surface, roll out flat with a standard roller. I followed up with using a decorative roller.




One thing I like about this dough, is that it can be reworked, and reworked. It doesn't loose anything. You know how some doughs get brittle as they keep getting worked? This one didn't seem to.

Cut Out the Cookies:

I chose to use a star and a snowflake. I didn't want my cookies to be too Christmas(y), and more winter(y).




Spray a pan with cooking spray.

Bake in an oven set to 350 degrees, for 12 minutes. I do 6 minutes on the top rack, and 6 minutes on the bottom.

To Pipe or Not to Pipe?

I had left over frosting, but after asking my family if they needed to be piped they said, "No. They are freaking good as they are!"

If you choose to pipe them, wait until the cookies are cool of course.

They are the perfect combination of ginger and chocolate!





Piczzle #puzzle Review

I've reviewed a Piczzle Picture Puzzle a few times before. They did an excellent job with all our puzzles!




All the Puzzles have been from Christmas postcards we've sent, so I'm thinking when the boys get older they can take them to do with their own kids, or I can leave them here for the grandkids - if we have some.

Easy to Work With: 

Piczzle was super easy to work with, and order. The shipping was so fast! We got it in less than a week.

My only problem was working around Christmas activities to get the puzzle done, which was not Piczzle's fault.

The Box:

It came in a fairly small box. I loved that because so many boxes for games and puzzles are so big!

I do think it would be great if they would have a vertical orientation for their box, as well as a horizontal one. The image quality on the box wasn't as good as the one on the puzzle.


300 Pieces: 

It didn't seem like a lot of pieces. I've done 1,000 piece puzzles before. It's a fairly small puzzle, so it did take some brain power! We all took turns doing it.


Mica started, I followed, Isaak bounced in between because he was sick, and Travis finished it off. I couldn't believe how much Travis worked on it. He usually isn't a puzzle guy. I always did them with the kids. He looked like he was having fun though.





Tip:

If you order a puzzle from Piczzle have patterns and color if possible. I had us wearing black and grey in the photo. When we were getting to Isaak's shirt, so many pieces seemed like they fit when they weren't a match. It would have helped to have him wearing a stripped shirt, or something we could go by.  


Finished: 

I do like the finished result! It's certainly a keepsake! 



Even though Isaak was sick, he enjoyed watching the puzzle process!  


Size:

It's a large sized puzzle (11"x17") with 300 pieces.

Price:

Their prices are really great! You can make your own picture puzzles. This one is worth $27.95. I think that's a great price for something custom.
  • Shipping priority is $7.23.
  • Priority Express, 3 to 5 business days is $21.92.
  • FedEx, 2 business days is $23.71.
  • FedEx, Overnight is $41.25.
All the puzzle pieces were there. I always worry about one being missing.

Overall I'm really happy with the puzzle. It was everything I hoped it would be. Piczzle really does a great job with their picture into puzzles.

Order a Piczzle Puzzle!   

Order a custom cardboard puzzle from Piczzle. You will not be disappointed! Like Piczzle Picture Puzzle on Facebook and Piczzle Photo on YouTube.

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free with Piczzle. All opinions are my own. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Friday, December 28, 2018

Random Tid Bits


  1. Isaak got a gigantic keyboard, a sweet new bigger screened Kindle Fire and more for Christmas. I got the biggest reaction when he opened his Under Armor Boxer Briefs. I think he thought that when he put on his undies he'd look much like the man on the package. Ha! Skinny boy needs to work on those muscles. He actually popped up, and changed into his undies right then and there. No shame.


  2. I watched a documentary last night on a snowstorm that happened in 1949. Boy was that horrible! Livestock and people froze because it happened so fast, and the wind was so bad! They didn't have equipment to predict the storm, or to take care of the snow. It was horrible!

    It snowed here. One of my friends said, "The weather man said we were just going to get a dusting." Well compared to the 1949 snowstorm it was a dusting! It was lightening and snowing at the same time.

    Source
  3. My sister never believed my green pepper relish tray trick. She specifically told me not to put green peppers on a relish tray, so I made one where that's all I put on it. She said, "I know you're messing with me. Get the real one out here."

    I ended up making tasty fajitas with all those peppers the next day. Take that!

  4. I have 2 of my classes fully prepared for. I mean everything done! I'm just having a hard time getting into the last one.

  5. We've been trying to work with the boys on math. Just to bump them up with things they weren't getting. Mica needs to get the meaning of - show your work! Isaak gets all emotional about things he doesn't get.

    Isaak got all good grades except for Social Studies. Imagine that...his core teacher teaches that. He got a C. That's the first for him. I woke up one morning at 5, couldn't go back to sleep, and emailed his teacher asking for the name, edition and chapter of their book. I ordered it on Amazon. It's Mica's favorite subject. I'm going to try to read the book with Mica by acting it out. Sometimes I do think if we didn't work, homeschooling would suit us well. I feel like we're doing a lot of teaching at home. Anyhow I had a teacher when I was Isaak's age that acted out Social Studies. I love it! Sometimes I think different kids need to be taught differently. Isaak's a visual learner like I am.

#godseyes #ojodedios Made With Toothpicks

My mom had a cousin that passed away suddenly a few years back. Since she was married, didn't have any kids, had a brother that lived miles away, and a father in his 80s we went through her things.

She made doll clothes, so she had some creative things in her apparent. I walked off with a few dolls, a lot of beads, some embroidery floss and other random things.

I've been on a mission to use up a drawer full of embroidery floss.

It started with me decorating this stocking for Travis' work:




I'm not sure that I love how it turned out. The stocking was so small. I didn't really plan anything. I just went with it. 

I did however enjoy making the tiny God's Eyes also known as Ojo de Dios with toothpicks. 

I went on to make more God's Eyes also known as Ojo de Dios with toothpicks! One for everyone's packages + all my relatives that are older and didn't get a package. 

They are ornaments, or could be put on the fridge too. 

I took note of everyone's favorite color(s) before making them.

My favorite color is red/orange. I didn't have that color, but I did have red. Travis likes teal. I made a few of these for our tree.


My nephew that likes green, and the red was just an extra one.


Even though Emerson (my nephew with Trisomy 18) doesn't speak, he communicates. He shakes his head no and yes, likes to watch football, whines when he is uncomfortable or has to go to the bathroom, and gravitates to orange and blue.


My sister Terra likes fall colors. This is about as fall(y) as I could get with the floss colors I have. I like this one though!


I have some crazy family members that like pink. I'm not a big fan, but they are. My other sister said, "Pink and Grey", so the middle one is hers.


Another extra, or maybe I gave this one away too. I don't remember.


I wish I would have thought to do this earlier. Travis' parents would have enjoyed a few I think. They like homemade things. They live in Arizona, so doing it the night before Christmas Eve Day wouldn't have gotten them shipped there. Ha! 

The biggest frustrations: I got superglue on my fingers so many times, The toothpicks not staying glued, and the floss getting all tangled up.

Do you like homemade gifts? 

My favorite gift is that Isaak made us a snow globe all on his own. I'll have to photograph it! I'm horrible with photographing things at Christmas time! It's dark when we open up presents both times. It hasn't exactly been sunny out. 

Thursday, December 27, 2018

I Hope You All Had a Wonderful Christmas!

Isaak had his holiday shows on Friday of last week. He was in a lot, so he was a big part of it. I'll post a picture or two later. We went to see him in the morning, and they presented again in the afternoon.

I took the day off to get a few last minute things, and wrap Santa gifts. It worked out well.

Before Isaak went to school he was a tad bit warm, but had no fever. I knew he worked his ass singing and violin playing self off for the day, and didn't want to miss it. Plus Isaak had this thing about missing school anyhow. He wants a perfect record. Since he didn't have a fever we decided to send him. We did call school, and had him skip safety patrol in the morning. It allowed him to sleep in a bit, and not be in the cold.

We went to pick him up at the end of the afternoon performance, he was crying, had a fever, didn't have his instrument picked up, and just stood up on stage for all the performance without participating. I told him to have the school call us if he got sicker. He didn't.

After we found his violin and music stand he came home.


He was sick all weekend. Finally on Christmas Eve Day he was better. We called the doctor's office a few times because he had a cold for 2 weeks prior to the fever bug. They were so swamped on Friday and Saturday that they couldn't see him. My mom was worried about him getting the Polio like virus called: Acute Flaccid Myelitis (AFM). My mom had Polio 2 years before the vaccine came out. She's probably really tuned into the virus because they've been talking about it a lot on the news.

Go to find out many kids got sent home with a fever that Friday at school. He still has a lingering cough, but is fine. I did get slightly freaked out when he went on about how much his legs hurt. He was limping around.

We were able to have a good Christmas! Everyone got cool things. I picked Travis up some stuff after Christmas because he looked disappointed. Hey he'll like what I got! What's something that you got for Christmas?  

Our Weatherman Bill

Meet Bill - I've talked about him before, but it's been awhile. You may have forgotten. My friend Mark swears I have a crush on him because I talk about Bill every once in awhile. He's been our weather man here, since I was a kid.


I like our weather man Bill Randby. He says the word, "Spectacular" way too much. A radio guy sent him a letter about it. When he does an afternoon weather report on facebook I try to jump on to say, "It's Spectacular out there Bill!" He reads the comments live, so I chuckle every time.

I always thought he looked like an old claymation character from a churchy show when I was a kid. I finally broke down, and searched for this image below...


The show is pretty disturbing. It's very indoctrinating. If you like to tell your kids how to think, and be this may be the show for your family. There's a few old shows on YouTube. The show is called Davey and Goliath. It's certainly not for my kids, but my Mom must of thought it was perfect for me. I still love her, so if you let your kids watch it, I'll still like you. I have to admit I was cracking up, with my mouth wide open when I watched an episode recently.

Disclaimer

The opinions on this blog are my personal take on products and topics relating to motherhood. This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me.

I am not compensated to provide opinions on a variety of topics. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are my own. If I claim to show knowledge of certain topic or product I will only endorse products or services that I feel, based on my expertise, are worthy of such endorsement.

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