Cookie Dough Christmas Gifts

For the last couple years we have passed out cookie dough as gifts for friends. I have two Kitchen-Aids and because of this it has made the job quite easy. My 14 year old daughter has been a huge help with this. I put the cookie dough in plastic Christmas tubes you would find at Walmart or a dollar store. I try to pick them up after Christmas for half price because I need about 30 of them. Here is the recipe I use, which I found at allrecipes.com

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 brown sugar
1 cup butter or margarine
1 t. vanilla
2 eggs
1 (3.5 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding
1 t. baking soda
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Preheat oven to 375˚. In mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars. Mix in vanilla, eggs and pudding mix. Combine flour and baking soda; add to creamed mixture and mix well. Fold in chocolate chips (and nuts). Drop by teaspoons onto greased baking sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned.

I use margarine because it seems to stay in the fridge better. Butter tends to make the mix dry out faster. You can keep this mix in the fridge for about 2 weeks and freeze for 3 months. I just finished my last 12 batches tonight and will have them all out by tomorrow!!! I've had a couple requests for more and they even offered to pay. Of course I would never allow them to pay for them, but it is flattering.

ScrapNLearn

We take days here and there and spend time making scrapbook pages from our lessons. This is something we have only been doing for a couple months now and the kids have a lot of fun doing it.




These pages were completed by my 7 year old son. He has such a great time putting them together.



This creation page was done by 10 year old Melanie. She has an Adam and Eve page in the works.



My 13 year old son will even get involved! He said he's looking forward to making another one soon.





My 14 year old daughter, Cassie, loves doing it so much she has decided to make it one of her church projects only using scripture stories.

My School Room

I thought I would add the pictures of my school room that I had had up on my other blog.


My bookshelves... they just sit on my desk, which is just a fold out table.

This is our main desk area. We spend most of our time here but the kids do sit at their desks to do independent work.

These bookshelves hold all the books I use with the kids during the school year, such as, literature, atlases, activity books and reference.


Each of the six kids has their own shelf to store their books. On the bottom shelves I have a box for each science books we use to hold the lab supplies.


A couple years back we painted our schoolroom blue and put an outline map of the world on our wall. We did this with an overhead projector. We paint in the countries we as we study them. This will be treasured for many years after the kids are gone.