Cold and Rainy Day

 So it's been very cold and rainy here today. High in the thirties and raining almost all day. We have gotten over and inch and a half in the last 24 hours.

The wind has been blowing from the north and it just feels cold today. So, what do we do on a day like today? We sew and we bake. And since it is December, we bake cookies!

These pictures were from our Cookie Sunday last weekend. We try to get together every year for a day of cookie baking and now the kids are old enough to be of real help.

I think it's safe to say we all had a good time and enjoyed some hot chocolate as well as cookies.

I made some tiny gingerbread houses to sit on the rims of our hot chocolate cups. These were so fun to make.

Sunday we tried making some jam thumbprint cookies. They turned out pretty good.

This is the Stollen I made from a King Arthur flour recipe. The blob in the middle is homemade almond paste. Less expensive than store bought and super easy to make.

This is a pistachio, chocolate and candied orange shortbread. Recipe came from the New York Times. It turned out delicious.

I had some extra gingerbread dough so I tried making gingerbread men to sit on the rim of a cocoa cup.

These checkerboard cookies are a recipe from Smitten Kitchen. The dough is made in the food processor, super easy. Putting together the checkerboard log for slicing was a little fiddly, but with a pizza cutter and my acrylic ruler it went rather well. Sometimes it helps being a quilter. My next post will be my finished Christmas quilt!