Summery Sugar Cookies

I always thought sugar cookies went with christmas... well no longer! This recipe rocks.

Coconut Lime Sugar Cookies

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
1 ½ cups white sugar
1 egg
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tbsp lime juice
½ cup unsweetened coconut
½ cup sugar for rolling cookies

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
3. Using a mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until smooth and very fluffy.
4. Beat in egg, vanilla extract, lime juice.
5. Gradually blend in the dry ingredients and coconut. 
6. Roll rounded teaspoonfuls of dough into balls, and roll in sugar. Place on cookie sheets about 1 1/2 inches apart. 
7. Bake 7-9 minutes in the preheated oven, or until lightly browned.
8. Let stand on cookie sheet two minutes before removing to cool on wire racks.

Just reading the recipe makes my mouth water.

I used green coloured sugar (that I had left over from another project) to roll them in to make them look limey.

Then I ran out of green sugar. So here is how to make your own coloured sugar:
Put however much sugar you need in a ziplock bag. Add about 2 drops food colouring for each 1/4 cup. Shake, shake, shake. Then spread on a plate to dry.
Voila! Pink sugar!

And here is my Daniel looking super cute. Jacob took this picture!

Soup's On... Or Not

Or not. So this post continues my ongoing quest to disprove certain theories about getting your kids to eat. See here or here. Jacob made soup. That's right. He did EVERYTHING. He cut the potatoes and carrots, without cutting himself or me. He opened the can of mushroom soup (that is how I make cream soup, now you know) dumped it in the crock pot. He put all the seasonings in to his taste. He learned how to turn the crock pot settings on. And... He wouldn't eat it. Not even a taste. I was so impressed with him making the soup though, so whatever. If he won't eat his own creation, why in the world would he eat mine?

Making Tracks

Tempera paint, old baking pans, paper, cars, and extra large t-shirts.
Good Times.

Here the boys are working together.
I love this picture.

A couple of their finished pieces.

More or Less

So I have been totally inspired by the zero waste home blog. This family of four makes almost no trash! They collected all their garbage for a year and it all fit in a mason jar, except for their toothbrushes, for which they could find no recyclable or compostable alternative. Amazing. We have been working with being a "minimal waste family," but we think we could do more. So we got rid of our big garbage can. We now have a small can upstairs for disposable diapers (which we try not to use) and an even smaller can under our kitchen sink. This was our first full week and guess what? We didn't need that big old garbage can!
I have also been totally inspired by Dee Williams. She lives in a teeny tiny house and only owns 300 items. That is what inspires me. Her stuff! If she needs or wants something new she has to move something out of her house. I probably have more than 300 things in my kitchen alone! And how much of that is stuff I use once a year or stuff I might someday eventually maybe probably need. So Jeff and I are celebrating our 30th birthdays this year and for our gift we are getting rid of one unnecessary item every day between his birthday and mine. That gives us about five and a half months and we are starting in the kitchen. This is going to be a thoroughly interesting exercise.