A Double Feature Friday - baking and a birthday!

 This cold, blustery weather got me in the Christmas mood!  I've been working on our annual letter and even made a batch of cookies and put them in the deep freeze - out of sight, out of mouth!  You might not think of oatmeal cookies as Christmas cookies but they are at our house.  The recipe is on page 171 in the first Lutheran cookbook aka "Family Favourites Cookbook", although I've never heard anyone call it that!

The cookies are rolled out and have a date filling so maybe that's why I only make them for Christmas.  I  baked the cookies today and will do the filling another day.  The recipe calls for lard along with margarine but I substituted shortening for the lard.  I also used half the amount of brown sugar and 1 cup of whole wheat flour along with 1 cup of white.

November 19 is a special day for a member of the Johnson family.  Stacy, our nephew Kris's wife, is celebrating a birthday today in Edmonton.  Happy Birthday, Stacy from the Johnsons at Torquay.  I even have some pictures of you on the computer so will add them here.  Stacy is a busy mom of two.  Samuel is six years old and in grade one, Ava is four and enjoying preschool.  Stacy also teaches French and counsels at an Edmonton high school.  And she does all this while contending with MS!  Kris helps out by being a stay at home dad until Ava is in school.  Ardis loves to spend time with her grandchildren too, often taking them to museums, parks and other places of interest.

We enjoyed spending a weekend with them this spring and were so pleased to have Ardis, Kris, Samuel and Ava join us for the birthday celebration in August.  Stacy needed a restful weekend so stayed behind this time.

  

We enjoyed attending a concert by "Country Blend" last Monday evening at Zion, Weyburn.  Abbey came along and was fascinated by the piano playing of Gordy "Crazy Fingers" Lindquist from Bottineau, ND.  Some of you may have seen him perform at Host Fest in Minot.  

We stayed overnight at Clare and Jodi's as Howard had a Dr. appointment on Tuesday.  That day was "Career Day" at Abbey's school so we got to see her as Miss Johnson, future teacher.

This is blog number 75!!  Blogging is an interesting project as you never know where it will take you.  I started this on my 68th birthday, February 10 and it has become a fun project for me.  Now I enjoy featuring family members on their special days as well as doing a Friday feature, usually a baking one.  Today is a double feature with a birthday as well as a bit of baking!  I appreciate any feedback or comments, keeps me on the right track.

Winter weather has arrived, minus 18 degrees C as I write this morning.  I guess we better get used to it. We hope our Saskatchewan Roughriders can endure playing in COLD Calgary on Sunday and earn  a trip to the Gray Cup on November 28th.  Go Riders!!