Gluten Free Danish Christmas butter cookies.

 I used to love these cookies!  In those Christmas tins, all different lovely shapes in their individual papers.  WELL, this Christmas I decided that I should look into trying to convert a recipe to make them gluten/corn free.

Which meant a lot of testing the dough and cookie eating on my part.  (You're welcome) ;)

 After I did it the first time I had a pretty good idea what little changes needed to happen, but finally got around to doing the changes and final test tonight!  And, I've got to post about it before I forget.  (Next year I'll want to find this recipe again and what is this blog for except to keep track of things for me like this?)

Okay, THIS is the original recipe that I changed over.  If you don't have to be gluten free then just do that one.

And here's how I'm going to say how to do it. --

Ingredients-
3/4 cup of almond meal
2 cups gf flour mix
1 cup sugar
1 & 3/4 sticks of softened butter
2 large eggs
1 tsp of vanilla extract (gf of course)

preheat the oven to 350
Cream the sugar and soft butter together, add eggs and vanilla (I mix all this with just a fork in a medium mixing bowl and when I toss the fork and bowl in the dishwasher and you are still taking apart and cleaning your food processor/fancy mixer keep telling me how much quicker it is.) ;)
mix in the almond meal/flour loosely scooped.. don't pack and push the flour into the cup or it will be too dense and too much.
I used the flour blend pictured below, but if you use a different blend and it doesn't have xatham gum in it then you should probably add a tsp of xatham gum or something as well. 
Same thing with the gf flour mix.  Don't pack it, just fluff it into the measuring cup and smooth the top off to accurately measure.
(Don't chill the dough as this doesn't seem to help, but only hurts gluten free baking from what I've experienced.)
Use a cookie press like this one
On an UNgreased baking sheet 
(sprinkle with sugar before baking if you wish)
and bake for 10 to 15 minutes 
(start at 10 and then add more time to get the amount of color you like.)

Creaming the butter and sugar.  I love this part!

 The original recipe and many pastry recipes will have you chill dough.  I did try doing this and the second time skipped that step because I've found that chilling gluten free dough has a negative impact rather than a positive one.  So as soon as it's all mixed up, pop it into the cookie press and get to pressing and baking!  Also, note, I didn't bother with making it into a roll before putting it in the press.  I did that the first time and the second time just spooned it in and pushed it down tight and it worked just as well.

This is the flour blend that I used!  It already had a gum in it so I didn't add any extra.

 I took a short video to show how the dough felt.  It's moist and sticks super well to itself, but doesn't stick to me at all.  Very much like play dough, but lighter.

 I bought the cookie press that the original recipe recommended and once I got the hang of it it worked great!  It's actually super fun!  It did take a while and some blobs of dough that went back into the bowl till I got the hang of it though!  If you have trouble I'll see if I can find or make a short video about it to demonstrate.  I fiddled with it and almost gave up before I got the hang of it and then it was easy.

Sample of all my test subjects on the first go around.

Before baking you can sprinkle sugar on the tops of them as well.  Half the time I forgot to do this step, but it was pretty when I remembered.  :)

And that's it!  Super easy and not even that many ingredients!  Everyone has loved them.  They are a light (shortbread type crunchy) cookie (similar to Sandie's Pecan cookies, but less crumbly) which I think goes so well with tea parties!  Also the almond/vanilla flavor can be complimented by so much.  I might play more with this for Valentines day!

R week!!!

 I was a little tired and didn't put as many things on the chalk board this time, but the girls like the Rose shaped like an "R" and the little "r" rabbit romping over a rock to the radishes.

Oldest is the top, 7 year old is middle and the 3 year old scribbled and I wrote the R's over her scribbles.  :)

R "week" felt a little spread out, but here are the highlights.  It also feels a little out of order because it started with a birthday, but I'll post about that later.  :)

At one point I came up with making a little "teacher's helper" sign for my older girls so they could take turns helping me with the little one while I helped one of the others.  It worked out okay, but it's a work in process.  I think they feel more official with the tag on.

We read a book about a "rock walk" and so we walked around the parking lot here at the complex and the girls had fun finding different sorts of rocks.  When we got them inside they washed them.  Everyone got sick though so we didn't get a chance to take them to the nature exchange at the zoo yet.

And this was the book that inspired the rock walk.  I'd recommend this one.  :)

The pictures were interesting and gave the girls fun ideas to do with their rocks.

 Another day my oldest decided to make a giant paper plane and we spent some time outside flying it.  Talk of air flow and how the flaps on the wings changed how the plane flew so on were the main topics.

A 9 year old very happy with her plane

Sisterly love, got to capture the sweet moments!

 Another day, it had been dreary for a while and everyone was feeling a bit depressed, so I cleaned out the back of the landrover and we did our school in there!

 The cat even joined us for a while.  :)

The little one played with rocks while I did school with the older two.

We pulled out a few work box drawers and brought them out here.  It was declared the "best day ever"

The cat wasn't quite as sure.  ;)

Reading and snacks and even lunch later were enjoyed in the car!  It was like a club house to them and it's funny how much better we all felt just getting a little change of scenery.

A little random I guess, but my oldest expressed some interest in playing the piano a bit so I did a little quick lesson on reading music and she learned how to play this little scale.  And I put stickers on the C's for her too.

The craft desk in a relatively tidy state.  Lots of visual journals drying.

 It's not always easy to foster creativity and crafts and art when you live in a little apartment with 5 people and are there all the time.  The car was a relief because we got out of the house for a bit!  But it's important for me to remember why I'm putting up with mess most of the time.  Creativity is super important and the skill that can't be taught.. it can only be allowed to grow.  :)

Which means that my dinning room table is usually covered with art of some kind.

 There are always paint brushes in the little half bathroom off the dining room.

 Yarn projects are usually out and laying about somewhere

 Sewing explosions and fabric get dumped on the floor.

 And my desk area doesn't usually look cleaner then this picture above.

 Craft corners are all over the house and I know my husband gets a little stressed with the mess, but it's important to be okay with this.  I do dream of one day having some sort of craft room or at least a little more space to allow all this to happen and not as easily getting overwhelmed from all the "stuff" and everything pressing in on me.

 R week and the rainbow theme ran through St. Patrick's day.  The girls wanted to celebrate the holiday and after Christmas I start to run out of steam for doing too much for other holiday's but I did a few things.  I told them to watch out for leprechaun tricks and they played that their toys had been "Leprechaunded" and said they had to cover everything with blankets so the Leprechauns wouldn't get to their toys.  They totally freaked out the 3 year old with this talk!  But I think over all they had fun with it.  They woke up to the picture above and their cereal had green milk (Those silly leprechauns must have gotten to it!) And for dinner our mashed potatoes were green as well since I put milk in to mash them up.  Everyone was delighted.  ;)

I put rainbows on my fingernails for St. Patrick's day.  I love the sparkles! FYI these are only available for a couple more weeks - till April 15th in case anyone was wanting to get one of the "fashionably festive" designs!

We've been doing a lot of visual journaling lately and our favorite place to do this is out by the pool.  It's not as loud with the water fall under repair.  It's still pretty loud with the highway and all, but it's nice to get a change of scenery.

I brought some books out one day and red to the little one for a while during our art time as well.

My oldest especially loves doing the visual journaling outside.  She wore her rainbow dress for St. Patrick's day too.

And that's basically the end of our "R week" but I didn't talk at all about the 6 year old that turned 7!!!!  Renna was so thrilled that "R week" came at the same time as her birthday.  We decorated in Rainbow balloons!

Our Quick "Q" week

Quarreling Quails Story 
Is one of the fairy tales we read.  There's not THAT many books with "Q" words, but this one fit along with the "words to remember" -I don't quarrel or complain, I am thankful- always a good one to remember!

Our chalk board for this week has a red and pink and heart theme because I did it right before Valentine's day!  You can't quite see in the picture but the two Q's at the bottom under the quail have angry eyes/eyebrows so are "quarreling"

The girls chalk boards, and the new cork board/geo board with push pins and rubber bands. My 9 year old created the Q for this week.  And "Hedgy" our Hedgehog helper her pictured as well.  :)

For one day this week we spent some time shaping all the letters of the alphabet!  I have pictures of all of them, but you just get to see the "Q" to match this week.  I'm planing to print them out and having the girls make an alphabet book or do some other fun thing with all the letters they created.

The 3 year old tracing the letter shapes from her puzzle.

Our decorations for Valentine's day!  My girls LOVE to decorate!

Their Gramma sent them puzzle houses to put together and paint for a Valentine's day gift so they enjoyed that a LOT.

The Daddy gave each girl a chocolate rose.  It was a thrilling day.  ;)

I bought them Strawberry plants for a present and they made a little fairy garden!

I found a hyacinth leftover from last year coming up in a pot outside where I threw it last year!  I potted it to bring it in and after the original flower cluster died another one was coming!  But this little early bird flower couldn't wait till the stalk grew taller!  Cracked me up.  :)

In Jamberry land I created a sensation by showing off how you can layer the TINT finish wraps (which are colored, but see through) over other wraps (especially black and white designs) for more looks!  This "Aquamarine" tint is on the going going gone list.. so after February 28th it will be gone forever! 

This is my current "Jamicure" with "Orchid Glimmer" that I love so well!  It's also going to be gone after February, but I got some extra so I can survive.  :) 

 Until March 3rd I'm running a "Mystery Hostess" party that anyone can join!  To be entered to win all the rewards you just purchase something through this party and then you'll be entered into a raffle to win ALL the hostess rewards generated by this party!  I'm putting an entry in for about every $15 spent to make it more fair for those people who buy a lot (they get more chances to win the rewards!)  It could be small or it could be epic.  My last mystery hostess party went really well and the winner got to choose a LOT of fun things!

And with sort of a selfie.. chilling today because I hurt my back.  :/

Earlier this week the older girls learned to make tiny quilts! 

 The quilt making was just very basic.  They learned the names for the different parts - Backing, batting, binding, quilt top, quilting stitch as opposed to a "whip stitch" and they got to pick the color of fabric they wanted.  We didn't do any piecing as I was having them do all the sewing by hand so they drew their pattern on with permanent sharpies.

All finished!

My 9 year old decided to make three different quilts for her Woodzies.  This is for the Mom and Dad skunk.

Notice how it works?

These two are for the kid skunks.

There was an ice storm and cold snap here in Dallas.  So, the Daddy got to stay home form work for a day!  I put him to work here though helping out with the homeschooling.  This is "The book nook" where I read to the 3 year old.  She was delighted to have so much personal time.

Also, I have to show off her Jamberry's too because they will ALSO be leaving forever after February 28th!  They are called "Unicorn Dream & Hearts" and I'm really glad we still have more of these in my stash!  They last quite a while especially the Jr sizes so she'll get to enjoy them again.  :)

And here's the snow day.  We actually still did school of course since we don't have to go anywhere anyway, but the girls had fun playing outside and finally got to use their snow pants!  It was pretty wet "frozen rain" type "snow" but they still had fun with it!  They even tried to make "snow angels"... you can imagine how wet everything was when they came in!

 Of course we did their workboxes and the bits of reading practice and writing and smatterings of math and games as usual.  But this is all the most fun parts of our "Q week"  :)

AAaaaand the first fire we've had that actually worked well.  My husband had to really push the thing to get the flew open but once he did that everything went well and the girls got to enjoy a fire in their quilts on that cold spring day.  :)

  Other thoughts on "Q week"?  It was quick!  Relatively quiet... with some quarreling between a quarter of our family.  Again have to recommend the "Animal Antics from A to Z" books!  Wonderful as always -Q was "Quentin Quokka's quick Questions"