Make a Smilebox scrapbook

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Getting ready for Halloween

Shelley and Cary are having a Halloween party, so I made these Vampire cookies.....

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/8 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup red jam (raspberry or strawberry)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325°F.
2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light.
3. Beat in egg and extracts.
4. Add flour and salt to the bowl and mix them into the butter-sugar mixture at low speed until dough is just combined.
5. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
6. Divide dough in half and keep the portion you are not using in the refrigerator.
7. Roll dough out on a lightly floured surface until it is about 1/8-inch thick.
8. Use a cookie cutter to cut out 2-inch rounds.
9. Place rounds on a baking sheet, put a teaspoon of jam on each of them and cover with another round of dough. Press edges down lightly, pinching the edges onto the cookie sheet.
10. Use a toothpick and poke two small holes (like a vampire bite) in the top of each cookie.
11. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until cookies are set.
12. Cool for about 5 minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
13. Dip a toothpick in some extra red jam and re-insert in the “bite” holes you made before baking to emphasize them, if not already red. Draw a blood trickle down from one of the bites with the jam, if desired.
14. Cookies are best the day they are made.

Makes 24 cookies

Molly Paige is finally here

Isn't she just beautiful? Born today, Oct. 26th at 11:10 a.m., 7 lbs. 13 oz. and 20.5 inches long, I can't wait to meet her...

Halloween cometh

Sat by the firepit and had coffee with Bill this morning. It was a beautiful day. I peeled apples with my old antique, and I mean antique apple peeler, and made applesauce which is now still cooking into applebutter in the crockpot,

it needs a couple more hours, made chili and cornbread over the fire outside, and carved my halloween pumpkin, what a great day! Still waiting on that new grand baby......

Darren and Mindy's wedding

The wedding was Sept. 9th, but I just not got these pictures, what a beautiful wedding and they look so happy..

An Early Halloween treat.

Hannah, Caleb and Austin attending Boo at the Zoo...what a great picture.

Diverticulitis sucks...

I was sick with diverticulitis and was put in St. Mary's Good Samaritan Hospital in Centralia. I was giving huge doses of antibiotics, and felt like crap the whole time. I came home after three days and still felt like crap for another week. I'm much better now, not completely well, but getting better....and now I can enjoy my Halloween.

Annual weiner roast and birthday party

We went to the annual wiener roast and birthday party at Paul and Stacy Simmons house. It was very cold and damp, but we had the huge bonfire and it kept us very toasty.

There was lots of food and we sat by the fire and visited. Finally we ladies got tired of being cold, we stole the birthday cupcakes and drank coffee in the kitchen....good times.
Paul's daughter was 15 today and was so happy with her new ipod. I always wondered what to do with those apple stickers....lol.

New hair..

Grand boys update

Oma Cisi's German Bakery

Kinmundy has a great new German Bakery, just a block from my house. They have the most beautiful cakes and pastries, all made by Germans from the old country...

I stopped by yesterday and got some turnovers and some windmills...they were made out of that light and flaky crust...raspberry creme turnovers, and apricot windmills....that cakes were whole cakes, and were a little pricey, but I bet they're worth it, like for a special party or something.

Pioneer pumpkin pie

I only had a couple of pumpkins that didn't rot in the garden this year. They were pretty small, but I baked them in the oven until the pulp was soft and then I pureed it and made a large pumpkin pie. If you have never tasted a pioneer pumpkin pie, you are really missing something. The flavor is so different from the canned pies I usually make..

A few pictures of Hawaii posted by one of Darren and Mindy's friends on Facebook

Weird skies over Illinois

As the sun was setting tonight, the sky became a strange green, then orange color....then it got dark....and....nothing weird happened.

Ingrams's Log Cabin Village and craft fair

Modern woman........Pioneer woman.
Inside one of the many preserved cabins....
Bucket o' buckeyes
Possum Trot String Band
Me and the corn shucks.....
"Smoke gets in your eyes"...if you're a pioneer woman
Spinning wool into yarn.

Dulcimer players added a nice atmosphere to the craft fair..thanks to the Historical Society in Kinmundy.

The famous Lex Shuler singing his "old man blues" song.
Me and Teresa goofin'....taking our own picture on a windy day in bad lighting....lol

I'm going to hell....but I laughed at this hilariously....

An Amazing work of human art

In case you can't read the small print on the bottom of the picture:

This is a human statue of liberty,composed of 18,000 soldiers in 1913.. Ft. Dodge, IA

Red Hat Luau at the Fall Fling

LUAU PICTURES.....

Click about length to see pictures from the Red Hat Luau.....

Lydia and Cody's wedding

Lydia and her dad were zooming down the aisle, about the time she got by us, she told him to slow down!
I was sitting pretty far back, but I used the zoom and took this picture. It was such a pretty Lutheran church and the ceremony was very nice.
Lydia and Cody coming out of the church after the ceremony.
Two of the lovely bridesmaids. Kelsey on the right used to work for us at the ice cream shoppe. Lydia worked for us too for several years. She worked very hard in the concession trailer too. That's why she's special to us.
Here are the pictures of Lydia and Cody from their childhood years. The wedding theme was kind of a Fall/Camo theme. Everything thing was green and brown, but was very beautiful. The bridesmaids wore dark green satin strapless gowns, the groomsmen wore tuxedos with vests of camoflage, but it looked very classy.
Isn't this an unusual cake? Mostly I guess the cake topper is what makes it so unique.
A close-up of the cake topper...
Cody and Lydia visited each person at their wedding and gave us all a can cozy. I forgot to upload the pictures here, but they were camoflage and said "the hunt is over" on one side and had their names and wedding date on the other. It was very nice of them to give us all a gift.

Rhiannon, in the red shirt, and Mallory , with the blonde hair, also worked for us at the ice cream shoppe, so it was great to see them again. I see Rhiannon often, but Mallory lives in St. Peter, so hadn't seen her for a while. There were at least 400 people there, probably more. It was fun. We hadn't been to a wedding for a long time.