Christmas Cookies with Friends

Today we made Christmas cookies with our friend from Eritrea. It was her first time making sugar cookies. PJ and Bean ensured the experience was messy, loud, and wildly chaotic. 

So, fun. 

The final result was fabulous! Colorful iced cookies that were far too yummy for our own good. 

I'd share pictures but well, most of them are already gone. 

XO

Granny Traditions 2013

While my mom was here, she built upon her special and new traditions with my kiddos. The links go to earlier blogs from her time with us earlier this year as a comparison.

1. She made awesome cookies with PJ.

Making the batter

Cutting out the cookies

PJ refusing to clean up after all the fun.

2. She decorated Jelly Bean's room. Apologies to my mom and Jelly Bean. I just cannot get good pictures of this room; it is too awesome for my limited camera options. And Jelly Bean is still too young to react and enjoy the artist value here.

3. She acted silly around all over the house with both kids. One strength that my mom has is acting child-like; PJ adored it.

Amazing picture snapped while playing hide-and-seek with Granny.

I have no idea what they are doing here but it was loud and looked like a lot of fun.

4. Getting the entire Steinbach clan in front of the camera at the same time (well, almost).

PJ refused to show his face.

So we tried again, including Granny this time.

xo

Cookies with Grannie

Another fun experience that Grannie: baking cookies! No story, just enjoy the adorable pictures.

 

 

 

 

I understand the cookies were pretty yummy too!



xo

The Buckeye Makes Her First Buckeyes

Being from Ohio, I grew up surrounded by the word buckeye. We use it for all sorts of stuff: our state is “The Buckeye State”; our beloved college football team is “The Ohio State Buckeyes”; our state tree is the proud Buckeye; and we call ourselves “Buckeyes”. According to Wikipedia, there is even a type of chicken and a butterfly from Ohio named after the buckeye. Who knew?

Growing up my favorite use of buckeye was for the extremely rich, belly-ache-causing cookies called – what else? – the Buckeye. Buckeye cookies are made with a no-bake peanut butter, sugar, and butter batter that is frozen before they are dunked half-way into melted chocolate, resulting in the cookie that looks like the buckeye tree’s seeds.

These cookies are fabulous and are usually the first cookies to disappear at any social, any time of year. I have a memory of a summer picnic in which I attempted to ensure my buckeye cookies supply by storing them in the pocket of my pants. Since they aren’t cooked and never get hard, they melted into the cotton of my pants. My mother was less than pleased at the discovery and I recall trying to suck the melted remains out of the cotton.

Needless to say, I haven’t ever seen a buckeye cookie over here in Germany-land. So this year I decided it was high-time for me to give my hand at making the cookies myself. Turns out they are really easy to make and just as rich and belly-ache-causing as I recall. The recipe I used is available online here.

You can take the girl outta Ohio, but you can't take the Ohio outta the girl. And I might just be getting some Ohio into the German.

xo

ps - was anyone out there aware the Ohio state rock song is "Hang on Sloopy"????? Want to know why - check out Wikipedia here. Watch the The Best Damn Band in the Land play the song here.

Cookies Galore

A friend and I got together to make cookies this evening. It was a rather American-influenced evening: chocolate chip and thumb print cookies. Yummy, yummy, yummy!

xo