Homemaking Link Up Weekend: Vintage Woodland Cookie Jar

Ok, true confessions:  Anyone who read my Thursday post knows that I have come in here, changed some stuff up and am REPOSTING it as my Homemaking Link Up Weekend post!!  My husband has a night free of college assignments and has invited me to watch our old favorite, Stargate SG-1 with him!!  How can I resist?  Bad blogger?  Maybe.  Bad wife?  Nope, not at all!

So...please link up your homemaking-related posts below and have a VERY lovely weekend!

To be honest, I bought this vintage woodland-themed cookie jar from a yard sale last month so I could resell it!  However, while I was preparing it for a photo shoot this morning, my sweet kids saw it and fell in love.  Please Mommy!!!  Ok...we'll keep it.  Besides, it matches my blog!

My 12-year-old daughter informed me at dinner, after I'd handed her a warm cookie from the new jar, that we are now like normal families because we have a cookie jar!

Did I say a warm cookie from the jar?  That's right!  This thick, ceramic container kept our cookies warm for over 5 hours!

My family has requested that I start making more "old-fashioned homemade" meals, so I've begun scouring my great-grandma's cookbooks and recipe boxes for some new-old things to make!  I knew that since we now had a cookie jar, I'd need to fill it with cookies, so I looked for a cookie recipe in this 1926 Cook Book from the Mothers' Club in Burns, Oregon.  Our Baker family ancestors started a ranch there in the mid-1850s and there are still Baker boys running it today!

Robert, Clyde, Nina, Martha, and Jim Baker Silver Creek, Oregon c. 1905

I made these Oatmeal Cookies just how the recipe states, except I used shortening instead of lard and added raisins.  There are no baking times or temps anywhere in this book, so I figured I'd bake them at 350 until they smelled done.  They're great!

The thing that intrigued me about this recipe was that it was sweetened with corn syrup only.  They were nowhere near as sweet as my regular recipe, but they were sweet enough---the raisins helped with that.  I didn't even notice until I'd picked them out that they were submitted by Mrs. J. T. Baker.  Hmmm....I wonder how she's related???

I'm having a lot of fun playing around with older recipes!  Do you have a favorite meal that your mother or grandmother made when you were younger?  I'd love to hear about it!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Also linking with:

Katherine's Corner: Thursday Favorite Things Blog Hop
The Rookie Seamstress: {What is it?} Wednesday

Homemaking Link Up Weekend

This is where I'll be this weekend:  Wallowa Lake in the beautiful Eagle Cap Wilderness of Eastern Oregon!  My friend, Audra, and I are headed up with some other friends to spend Friday and Saturday at a scrapbooking retreat!  I'm hoping to come home with a couple of cute card tutorials to share with you all!

I should have a few great pictures to show off too!

While I'm gone, how about linking up with my Homemaking Link Up Weekend?  I'll come visit you when I get home!

April Showers Rainy Day Activity #CBias #SocialFabric

It's been sunny and gorgeous all week here in Eastern Oregon.  That is, until today!  The Coller kids woke up to a rainy day and needed something extra fun to do while waiting for the sun to come out again!  Normally, we homeschool on weekdays, but today I needed to do a few necessary things around the house since I'd been gone all weekend.

Last night, Cainan and I went to Walmart to shop for project supplies and TCBY frozen yogurt---just in case we needed a rainy day project.  Whadda you know?  We needed one today!  To see more of our shopping trip, what we chose, and the other fun things we saw and did, visit my Google+ album!

We wanted to create a spring-themed project that also used the frozen yogurt theme, since we would be having a TCBY frozen yogurt party after we were finished with the craft.  We decided to make something that we could reuse over and over---so we made a Bean Bag Toss!

     
We bought a large Elmer's Tri-Fold Display Board and made holes in it with a razor blade. Then we decorated it to look like a great big frozen yogurt cone.  The glitter sprinkles were made using Elmer's Glitter Paint Pens.  We made one side a list of Rules and the other side a list of High Scores.  The scores are written on sticky notes so they can be changed out as scores improve!

Earlier last week, Lynzie made some bean bags in preparation for the game.  Aren't they adorable?  She made them to look like scoops of TCBY with sprinkles on top!  She used felt pieces, beads and beans!

Everyone had lots of fun playing the Bean Bag Toss game!

We taped lines on the floor at three different distances from the board so everyone would be challenged.

Rule #4:  Only those old enough to read the rules have to obey them!

After we were finished with our game, we had a TCBY tasting party!  Have you seen the new line of TCBY frozen yogurt treats that Walmart is carrying? 

Cainan chose one of each pint that our store had in stock and the kids got to try them all!

It cracks me up to see the kids' faces when we give them a big treat like this.  They RARELY get sweets!

What a fun way to spend a rainy day!

For more information on TCBY's grocery offerings, visit:

TCBY Website

TCBY on Twitter

TCBY on Facebook

I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™. #CBias #SocialFabric All opinions are honest and are my own.

#TCBYGrocery