Baptism

We baptized my new niece Annika this last weekend. My Grandpa Maynerd came and we had a very nice lunch together as a family. My brother and his family had been home with my parents for much of the week and had Thanksgiving together and I got to have a bit of Thanksgiving that weekend since I worked over the holiday. My mother embroidered and sewed a hardanger baptismal dress for Annika and the hardanger baptismal towel (she makes all the baptismal towels for our church). You can always tell if it is a big deal at our house if Mom has the farmers rose norwegian dishes set out! She also put out all of her norwegian Hennig figurines as a centerpiece! The fiddler is hers, but the rommegrot girl is mine and will be given to me if I ever move into a home that would house a china cabinet! Annika was such a good girl during church and didn't cry during the service.


And since I wasn't home on the actual day, I made the traditional holiday frosted sugar cookies when I got home. These are known around our house as "Rest Home Sugar Cookies" because years ago my mother (a degree holding Home Economist) gave a demonstration/activity at the local nursing home on how to bake these cookies. This is the only recipe I've ever known for frosted sugar cookies, but apparently all other recipes call for chilling the dough and it's a big production. These are mixed up and baked (you still have to cut in the butter but oh well) and then frosted. They are funny though because the cookies are always quite crisp when baked and I like a soft cookie. I use the Wilton frosting recipe and once frosted, the cookies have to sit out for a few hours so the frosting will "dry" on the surface and soften the cookie (these can only be made in the fall/winter/spring. They will not dry as they need to during the summer). Then they are packed between waxed paper. I didn't have much brown food coloring paste as you can see, so I decided to go for a fun "Technicolor" look! Just think of all the carcinogens in those artificial colors! I would also have you note the SHAPE of these cookies! I am very fussy about how they look when frosted and will not accept offers of help to frost. Those Tom Turkeys are an awkward shape and are very time consuming to frost, but then Thanksgiving only comes once a year. I really love Valentines day (hearts) and Easter (eggs are way easy, but the bunnies are a bit of a problem), Halloween is ok (pumpkins-yes, ghosts and black cats-no), etc. Either way it is an all day activity, but I always make at LEAST a double batch so we have some in the freezer and some to send home with people, etc. Cookie anyone?