Gluten-full sugar cookie time

We have always made sugar cookies, cut them out, and decorated them for as long as I can remember. So today Mom made the dough and we let it cool in the fridge while we enjoyed another tradition (boys excluded): watching the Nutcracker.
Then came the rolling out, cutting and decorating...my favorite part.

Mom bought a few animal cookie cutters this year, so there was some Kenyan style with a giraffe, lion and elephant.

Sugar Cookie Recipe
1 1/2 powdered sugar
1 c butter, softened
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 1/2 c flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cream of tartar
Combine all but dry ingredients and blend until smooth. Add in dry ingredients. Chill in the fridge for 3 hours. Then roll out with powdered sugar/flour and cut. Bake on lightly greased pans at 375 for 7 minutes

Gluten Free Dairy Free Delicious Sugar Cookies

Merry Christmas to Rebekah and Adrienne because these are the best subs I have found yet. I surprisingly got the recipe on a land of lakes website.
1 cup sugar
1 cup butter (or dairy free sub)
2 egg yolks (or egg replacer)
1 1/2 tsp GF vanilla
2 1/4 cups gluten free flour (used Bob Mills Gluten Free Baking Flour)
1/4 tsp salt
Combine sugar and butter and blend until creamy on medium speed. Add egg yolks and vanilla and beat. Reduce speed to low and add GF flour and salt slowly. Beat until well mixed.
Chill in refrigerator (I had to chill for several hours to get it to roll out, but if you want to just make round cookies you could bake immediately)
Preheat oven to 350. Roll out dough sprinkling with gluten free flour to 1/4 inch-ish and cut with cookie cutters.
Bake for 9-12 minutes until lightly browned.

Merry Christmas

From the Georgia House

Mark upped the ante with lights on the roof...must match that next year. Bigger and better every year, that is the idea. Though Leah has automatically got me with the blow-ups.

Supalla's side

My lights flash but at different times, which is my favorite part...gotta find some more of those post Christmas sale time!

O Holy NIght

Always has been one of my favorites...here are a few of the lyrics

Long lay the world in sin and error pining,

'Til He appear'd and the soul felt its worth.

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Fall on your knees! O hear the angels' voices!

O night divine, O night when Christ was born;

O night divine, O night, O night Divine.

Christ is the Lord! O praise His Name forever,

His power and glory evermore proclaim.

His power and glory evermore proclaim.

 

Advent

Adrienne and I have been reading through an Advent book this season...it was written by one of our pastors and is called Behold the Lamb of God. I guess I was anticipating a lot of stuff from the gospels, but we are on day 11 and we have been in the Old Testament the whole time. It has been great to see all of the stories pieced together...I forget that each of the stories of Adam and Isaac and Jacob and Moses are all connected with this common thread. And hearing them all brings new meaning to the season of advent...of waiting, anticipating, remembering, preparing and longing. As all these stories are unfolding you hear the promises that God gives the people and how they trusted and clung to the promise and waited. And how that applies to us even now, as we wait and anticipate and prepare and long.

Who I Am

Tuesday night at our group we went through Isaiah 62 together and pulled out all the names of who we are in Christ. I wrote them all down, but figured a digital reminder is always good too, so here is our list:
Transformed
Beautiful
Beloved
Delighted in,
A city not deserted
Filled
Advocated for
Married/unbroken presence of love
One flesh
Protected
Heard
Redeemed
Not forgotten
The holy people
Sought out
Redeemed of the Lord
  Just a little reminder of who we really are.

You want me to do what?

I started reading through Matthew/the Christmas story. In reading I was amazed by all that God was calling Mary and Joseph to, but specifically Joseph. God first called him to stay with a girl who was pregnant which I am sure was a huge deal then, especially in a small town. Task 1 that he probably wasn't too crazy about. Then once the baby was born, Herod was out to kill the baby, so God called him to travel from Bethelehem, where they were, to Egypt. I had never really thought to look at a map, but I did this week....it is a long long way. I would guess hundreds of miles to travel by foot or horse or whatever with a newborn. Task 2 he probably wasn't too crazy about. Then after they had settled in Egypt, Herod died and God told them it was safe to return to their land, but Bethlehem was not safe, so instead they traveled further north to Nazareth, so another super long journey to live in a new place with a baby. Task 3 he probably wasn't too crazy about. And I am guessing that he and Mary hadn't really spent much time together prior to their marriage so add marriage into that equation. Matthew then jumps to John the Baptist and Jesus once he is grown. But I still kept thinking about all the wildness God was calling these two ordinary people into.
So then it got me thinking about the things I grudgingly do that I think God is crazy for asking of me and it makes me look at it differently. And it makes me remember that I am being called into different things because of my weakness and inability as an ordinary person...that he has great plans for things and he is the one at work and I simply bring my inability and follow. Sounds so easy, right? If only my fears and my stupidity and selfishness didn't stand so firmly in the way of this.