I know many don’t do their Christmas cookies until after Thanksgiving, and then some like me will do them earlier. I’m making my cookies now because then I can take them to our family gatherings and share now, rather than just have them all here to eat by the three of us.

I am making a rolled sugar cookie with cream cheese, and naturally we’ll use a cream cheese frosting with it. (Yes this we all like cream cheese in this family.) The ones I made last year seemed to have gone over well with the extended family, but I couldn’t remember which recipe I used. Therefore it could be a new recipe this year, but most of them seemed very similar so it should be close if not exactly the same this year.

While I was searching on www.food.com for the recipe, I came across a recipe for a cream cheese cookie that’s completely sugar free. It’s what I would call a pinwheel style cookie and uses preserves. Since my dad is watching his sugar intake, I thought I would give these a try as well. For the preserves I choose Smucker’s Simply Fruit in Seedless Strawberry which does not have any sugar either. So these could easily be one of the healthier desert choices available on Thursday.

You might want to ask me how these cookies taste, but the truth is I don’t know yet. Cookies with cream cheese in them need to be chilled before they can be rolled out, so we’ll actually be baking them tomorrow, Though I have tried each of the doughs (naturally) and they both tasted good to me.

from Laura Lambert – Google+ Post

Allyssa and I have been working on her reading skills for a couple of months. As she’s only 4, I haven’t really pushed her but she has been interested in reading books for herself for more than a year now. She would memorize the books Shane or I read to her and then read them back later. So I decided that perhaps it was finally time to work a little more with her on reading.

At Hudson Library I found the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. The first lessons from this book went fairly well, but one of the first constants they work with is S. As it appears Allyssa has a lisp, she didn’t like working with the S sound. So while the first lessons seemed to go well, after a short bit of time, she didn’t want to work on the lessons.

While when we started the book she was greatly interested in the reading lessons, that devolved to when I would suggest them, she would show little to no interest. Not that she didn’t want to read, more that she wasn’t interested in working on the lessons from the book.

When I had been looking for tools to help me teach her to read, I had come across other books on the subject. One of them was Teach A Child To Read with Children’s Books. Since it wasn’t actually at my local library, I needed to request it via interlibrary loan. (Wonderful system!) Since we were using the other reading system when it first arrived, I didn’t take the time to read it immediately. Only when it was coming due (and I wasn’t able to renew because of another request for the book), that I took the time to actually read it.

Now, I certainly wish I would have read it sooner. I had to take the book back today, but I picked a few of the PrePrimer 1 and PrePrimer 2 level books to check out from the library. Partly because I wasn’t exactly sure of her level, and it’s what was at the local library. Though most of the books I’ve looked for on the book list are available through the local library system.

She already knew some words, both from the 16 lessons we had done out of the 100 easy lessons, but more from the books she had memorized. Which was part of why I wasn’t sure of her level. When we came home tonight, I laid out the books I had picked up at the library and let her choose which one we would try to read by just looking at the cover.

She chose Blue Bug Goes to School by Virginia Poulet.  (Which the author considered PrePrimer Level 2.) We looked through the book first, talked about what appeared to be happening through the pictures. I pointed out a few words I was sure she didn’t know. Then I had her read the book to me. Now I will say she didn’t know all the words, and I did tell her those words after giving a little bit of time to see if she could figure them out, all in all she did a wonderful job of reading this book she had never seen before. For one word that she didn’t remember the second time we saw it in the book, I just pointed back to where I had first told her the word, and then she recalled it.

She immediately wanted to read it again after we finished it. Then she felt it necessary to read it to dad. Then she wanted to read it to mom again, after that it was time to read it to her babies. By now she’s read it probably close to a dozen times, and there is only one word in the book she has a problem remembering and that’s flannel.

I’ve always known she’ll be a reader once she learns how, what else would one expect from a child who when 3 would sit and pretend to read books that didn’t have pictures but she’d still sit there, look at the words, and turn the pages appropriately. The 100 lessons book seemed to take away some of her enjoyment of learning to read, but I think this style transfer may be just want she needed.

Now I will have to try and remember what to do from the book even though I don’t have it right now. Hopefully I’ll remember enough to be able to use the system, until I’m able to receive it again from the library soon.

from Laura Lambert – Google+ Post Feed https://plus.google.com/101948978596100334451/posts/EzX7VEf6NHd

This evening we had a wonderful supper of homemade French Onion Soup with a homemade baguette. Shane started the soup this morning and left it to simmer all day long in the slow cooker. This afternoon I made the baguette using the Food Processor.

Making bread in the food processor you ask? Well I had checked out a book from the library that explains how to make bread using the metal blade for 45 seconds to knead the ingredients into bread dough. I think it worked rather well myself. I’ll definitely be using this method again.

from Laura Lambert – Google+ Post Feed https://plus.google.com/101948978596100334451/posts/DbNmqeD4DkW