Yummy Memories

My Grandma Kanar has the best sugar cookie recipe, hands down.  No, seriously, she does.  I would totally duel anyone who disagrees.  Now, my grandma isn't much of a cook-just ask her-but these cookies are one of those things that she does very well.  And these fantastic cookies have been the center point of some great family memories.  If you ask my father, Christmas doesn't really come without cut-out cookies.  Every Christmas when I was growing up, we as a family would make these delicious cut-out cookies and decorate them together.  I have many memories of all of us in the kitchen, cutting out cookies, popping them in the oven and then decorating them once they had cooled.  And we'd get to eat our favorites that night.  And of course, leave some out for Santa Christmas Eve.  But these cookies are just for Christmas.  On Valentine's Day and Easter, my mom would make special cookies and tuck them into our lunch boxes.  She would do hearts for Valentine's Day, something my mother-in-law also does for her children even to this day, and little ducks for Easter.  I always loved it.  It made us feel special because my mom took the time to make us a treat just for that holiday.  It's a tradition I definitely plan on carrying on with my own children.  Which is why it's so handy that I have Grandma's recipe.  And in case you wanted to start some traditions of your own, I'm sharing it with all of you!  

Grandma Kanar's Cut-Out Sugar Cookies

5 c. flour

1/2 tsp. salt

2 c. sugar

3 tsp. baking powder

1 c. shortening

3 eggs, well beaten

1/2 c. milk

1 tsp. vanilla

In medium bowl, combine flour, salt, sugar and baking powder.  Add in shortening and work in with hands until mixture is fine.  Add in eggs, milk and vanilla.  Roll out the dough, grab your cookie cutters and cut into desired shapes.  Bake at 375 degrees for about 10 minutes.

Get the kiddos involved!  Have them each pick out their favorite shape to cut out and decorate once they're baked.  It's a fun way to make some yummy memories of your own!

You could make these for Valentine's Day, Easter, St. Patrick's Day, the 4th of July, Thanksgiving and of course, Christmas.  They're also great for themed birthday parties because you can make them whatever shape you want!

Happy baking!

I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and Coca-Cola® blogging program. If I am one of the first 100 blogs received by SocialsMoms, I will receive a $25 gift card. For more information on the program, click here.

Road Trip!

No, I'm not going on one.  I was reading through my old journals the other day and came across this entry from a ways back that made me laugh.  To call it my favorite road trip might be a stretch, but it definitely was an eventful one.  I wanted to share it with you all:

Monday, May 23, 2005

I just had an awful weekend.  It started off bad, got briefly better, then just went all downhill from there.

FRIDAY: [My friend] Whitney and I had to go to the airport to drop off her dad's car on our way to Orlando, me following her in my car.  We got that done without incident and get back on 275 (the major highway near the Tampa airport.)  We needed to go north to get to I-4 (the major highway that goes from Tampa to Daytona and goes through Orlando.)  Well, the jerk impolite driver in the lane next to us wouldn't let us over, thus forcing us into the exit lane for 275 SOUTH.  Now, immediately following this exit in the Howard Franklin Bridge, which is THE. LONGEST bridge around here.  No joke.  There are signs just before you get on it telling you to check your gas because it's that long.  So, of course, because it's a bridge, there is no place to turn around, except for at the other end of it.  So, we had to go all the way across, turn around and head back across, this time FINALLY in the right direction.  We made it to I-4 and Orlando just fine.  Now, let me back up just a bit: our reasons for going to Orlando were twofold.  One, we want to go to a church dance that was being held over there and we wanted to go to Cocoa Beach to go surfing.  We have friends that live in Orlando near UCF (the University of Central Florida) and we were planning on staying the night with them and then all of us would go to the beach the next day.  

We make it safely to [my friend] Maria's apartment to get ready for the dance and head off.  It's about 9:15 pm at this point and the dance started at 9, so we figured we would be fine.  We start off and end up getting HORRIBLY lost.  The road that we needed changes names like a million times, thus we were looking for the wrong end of it and ended up going the wrong way, winding up in an itty bitty town about 30 minutes north.  Luckily the nice man at the gas station helped us get pointed in the right direction.  We finally make it to the dance at around 11:30.  Now, usually these dances last until 1 am, so we figured we still had about a hour and a half to cut a rug.  WRONG!  About 2 minutes after we get there, we here an announcement saying something like "Dance ends in 30, so get your groove on."  [Insert angry faces here.]  We stayed til the end and then headed back to Maria's apartment.  To get back to the apartment from where the dance was, we had to drive through downtown Orlando.  Turns out a band that we all liked was playing that night and had just gone on by the time we were passing through.  We decided to stop only to discover that the show was 21 and up since it was at an outdoor bar [lame.]  We decided to go anyways, figuring we could at least listen from the street.  We parked and made our way over to find that no one was watching the back entrance.  Score!  We went right in and got to see Lit.  For free.

SATURDAY: We make it to the beach, no problems.  The weather was lovely, the water was nice and the waves were good.  As we're getting ready to leave, the sky gets very black and just opens up.  No biggie, we're heading home anyways.  We stopped at a drive thru, grabbed some lunch and started on our way home.  We're not even out of Cocoa when my tire goes flat.  As we're going across a bridge.  In the rain.  So, we pulled over onto the median-the grassy, soggy, red ant-infested median-and proceeded to change the tire. The jack kept sinking into the wet ground and falling over.  We did manage to get the tire off and put on the spare.  We got back on the road, found the next gas station and aired up the spare.  I gave my mom a call to let her know what happened and she located a Wal-mart for me so I could get a new tire (I couldn't drive all the way home, which all total was a 3 hour drive, on the spare.)  I go back inside, with the address of the Wal-mart and ask the attendant for directions.  After driving for FOREVER, we finally reach the sign for 520, where the Wal-mart is and it was right near where we had been right before we got the flat.  WE WENT IN A GIANT CIRLCE!!!  We finally get to the Wal-mart at 7:30 after having left the beach at 4:30.  The nice lady at the tire place told us it might take up to 3 hours to get to my car.  So we had to wait.  We wandered around Wal-mart for a bit.  Around 8:30, I hear my name on the loudspeaker saying that my car was done.  WOOHOO!  We made it back to Orlando and were back on the road home by 10:30.  But, no trip home from Orlando is complete without some road construction.  We finally got home at 1 in the morning.

The day started like this

 And ended like this.  This is our "Bad Day Saturday Club" that we formed in the middle of the folding chair aisle at the Wal-mart.

It wasn't too funny at the time, but looking back at it now, it makes me laugh : )

I wrote this blog post while participating in the TwitterMoms and Discount Tire blogging program, making me eligible to receive a $50 gift card and be entered for a chance to win a prize valued at $1,000. For more information on how you can participate, click here.