Iced Pumpkin Cookies

These are yummy little darlins. I doubled the recipe (to take to the kids at AWANA) and rolled the dough into 1 inch balls, so they were small and cute and there were bazillions of them! Thank you to Brandy and Ariel for helping roll, bake and ice!

Iced Pumpkin Cookies

(Yield 3 dozen)

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
 
2 cups confectioners' sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, and salt; set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, cream together the 1/2 cup of butter and white sugar. Add pumpkin, egg, and 1 teaspoon vanilla to butter mixture, and beat until creamy. Mix in dry ingredients. Drop on cookie sheet by tablespoonfuls; flatten slightly.
3. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven. Cool cookies, then drizzle glaze with fork.
4. To Make Glaze: Combine confectioners' sugar, milk, 1 tablespoon melted butter, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Add milk as needed, to achieve drizzling consistency.

Update on prayer for Polly

Please continue to lift up little Polly in prayer in the next few weeks. Here is an update on Polly. She is still seizure free and has regained the motor coordination she had lost from the stroke. She needs to stay seizure free for a few more weeks so doctors can do two brain procedures on her. Lots of tests and trials coming up for this little girl! Thank you for your prayers.

Much ado about fuzz

One of my household chores is to trim the dog. She is bichon/poodle and grows fuzzy, curly fur like a machine. She doesn't like to be trimmed though and struggles and wiggles the entire time. I can't even do her feet so she often looks like she's got slippers on. (when I get to her feet, she gnaws on me while I'm cutting and she is constantly pulling away from me very hard at the same time)

The other day I started in on her. I just got her head done, but it wasn't 'done' done, just scissored and very wonky looking. Her neck and body were like a huge puff with her little petite head stuck on, no neck. We could not look at her without giggling, so she was starting to feel self-conscious.

So this afternoon I worked up my nerve to continue. I got her back, sides, bottom, and neck done. So now she has huge puff legs and an under carriage of fuzz. I will try to finish her off (play on words and my attitude) tomorrow, but her legs and feet are the worst part of the job, so I might be putting it off. (just sayin) I guess it's worth saving $40 to clip her myself, but it's a week long process. After I get her all scissored off, I have to even her out with an electric clipper....and that is like trying to shave a greased piglet while it's in hyper mode. She is just lucky she's the best dog we've had, because she is a PILL!

Here are some of her many 'looks'. (because I cannot consistently make her look the same way)

Short ears, very puppy-looking.
Youtube addict, mid-ear length. She like the funny cat videos.
Crazed maniac.
MOOstachio.
Jay Leno look.
Muzzle-poufed.
Flat head.
Emo legs.
Muppet. (or "I've got a lazy mom who won't trim me")
She is the one on the left. (I think)
Dandelion, or, the "early look".
Last one.
Basket case.
Oh, and her E.T. look is at the top of the page.

Happy puppies to you all!

I'm praying for Polly!

I have a new button on my right side bar, Praying for Polly. My dear friend and fellow PW Gillian has a sweet little girl who has Down Syndrome and has developed a new syndrome called Moya moya syndrome. Here is the story. Please pray for Polly and her family as they wait one month before she can have 2 brain surgeries to correct what is dangerously happening in her brain. They have to wait a month after the stroke she had to do the surgery.

This is my same friend who this year has adopted a new baby from Ukraine who also has Down Syndrome. I had a button for bringing Evangeline home for a long time too and she is finally with her new family. So this is the same family. What a year for them. Thank you for your prayers.

The Advent Conspiracy

Have you started your holiday shopping yet??

Well if you haven't, why not do something radically different this year?

Go here and ponder the difference you could have this year in your home during the holidays. Last year we did this. We didn't give to the charity they promote on the site, but we did give to foreign missions. And we made inexpensive homemade gifts for each other that were so cool to open on Christmas morning.

I'll write more about this later, including homemade gift ideas. I just can't tell you what I'm making this year. ;)

I won 2 prizes!

I won a prize!!

My friend e-mom over at Chrysalis, an e-zine (electronic magazine) had a drawing for a $25 ice cream gift card. She put the names of frequent commenters in a hat and pulled out my name. I was really happy, I love winning things. But then she added a special prize for me.

She wrote a post for pastor appreciation month on pastor's wives and I left a comment. Something was said about a crock pot idea, I don't know, hard to remember. *blush* So she is sending me a crock pot as a bonus!! How cool is that?

Anyway, she is very cool and I appreciate her as a blogging friend and comrade! She is always sticking up for us pastor's wives and leaving me comments on my blog....she is very encouraging! So thank you e-mom!!!

There will be pictures at a later time and probably a pot of chili or chicken too.

Mailman Bob and the rosemary

I just put a roast on for dinner. And I used the postman Bob recipe for roast beef.

When we lived in New Jersey, I had small children and quite often we would be out in the yard playing when the postman came by. In our 10 years there, we never had any other postman except Bob. He was this older Tony Danza type of guy, talked like him too. He was very animated and just loved people. I would see him stop and talk to a lot of people over the mailboxes in those 10 years. My children loved him. One day he rang the doorbell.

"Hi, listen, I hate to bother ya, but I can't help but notice every day when I deliver your mail what a nice rosemary plant you got here. I promised the wife I would make a nice roast tonight and I was wondering. Would you mind if I just cut a little tiny bit of your rosemary to put on my roast?"

He was so apologetic that I was giggling by the time he was done. People in Philly and New Jersey can be very dramatic when they are talking. Drama and postmen just seem comical to me.

"Of course, take as much as you want and help yourself anytime, ok?"

"Wow! Gee, I was so nervous to ask, but I have that nice roast and the wife loves when I roast it with rosemary."

So I had to ask for his recipe, it was intriguing to me. This was about 1993 and I hadn't heard of using rosemary in cooking much. I don't think there was a Food network then, or at least I hadn't heard of it. We didn't have cable and I don't even think there was much satellite television yet. We had it because it was a gift and it smelled so good. So here is his method. I tried it soon after our little front porch talk and we loved it!

You can use any cut of roast, but he always used a top round roast and roasted it in the oven, uncovered and dry like a prime rib. I usually use a pot in the oven or in a crockpot and cover it. The main thing is peel and slice garlic cloves into slivers and pull little sprigs off your rosemary. Then in the top of the roast, cut deep slits, into which you insert the sprigs and slivers. Then generously salt and pepper it. Roast as you like. His method to roast was to put the meat into a baking dish and set the oven on hot, 450º. Put the roast in, uncovered for 1 hour, then turn the oven down to 350º until it is the way you like it rare, medium or well done. DELISH! Serve with mashed potatoes and gravy made from the pan drippings and you have a meal that tastes gourmet.

I always viewed Bob as a friend after that and we would stop and chat a little more often. And sometimes when I stepped out to get my mail, there would be a distinct fragrance of freshly snipped rosemary in the air. It made me smile.

Fall in Phoenix

Fall in Phoenix.

It lasts one week and then it's back to summer until Thanksgiving.

In the past week:

-The temperatures have gone down in the 60's at night....very nice. But people go around all the next day with sweaters on while it rises to the 80s. I think they are sincere in their wearing of sweaters, but I still have to giggle.

-People open their windows and doors to let the cool morning air in, even after their a/c kicks back on in the afternoon. (I'm guilty of this, I love outside air....I almost said fresh air....silly me)

-There is a faint smell of woodsmoke in the evenings.

-Fall decor is starting to make it's appearance in my neighborhood. Mums, pumpkins, witches, ghosts, caution tape and weirdly purple lights.

-My sisters have started planning the Thanksgiving dinner menu.

-Candy corn is disappearing from the ceramic pumpkin on our piano.

-3 plastic barrels of ginger snaps appeared on our pantry shelf. (someone keeps forgetting she already bought some)

-Slippers have come back in style.

-The dark loads of laundry are outnumbering the light loads.

-The snowman jar on the microwave is suddenly full of cough drops again.

-There is a distinct difference in everyone's mood.....a more chilled out attitude is evident.

By Saturday it will be back in the 90's again. Kinda makes my pumpkin scented candles seem premature.