'Tis the season to be a wally

Advent day 11 it's getting closer!! I'm excited anyway....So yesterday our advent 'surprise' was to decorate the Christmas cookie tree together. Most of the advent surprises end with together as that's what it's all about. Getting us all together, even if it's just for ten minutes before my husband rushes off to work. The other night we sang Christmas songs together (good job our neighbours live away most of the time they may have thought a cat was getting strangled!) It was hilarious and my son Chase who's nearly two thought we had all gone mad, although he danced and screamed "Yay!!!" at the end, so we must have done well. Anyway, here's my cookie tree recipe, don't worry if you haven't got the star cutters they're £4.99 on-line from Lakeland or you could always try cutting freehand stars, or even different sized circles to stack. This recipe gives you enough dough for twenty large to small cookies.

600g sifted plain flour
300g butter
300g sugar
Tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs beaten
Kg pack of ready roll icing (I got mine in Lidl)
Decorations (Again Lidl had some decent decorations, or the Pound shop)
Tbsp jam

In a bowl (or mixer if you have one) cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (as shown above)

Add the beaten eggs and vanilla and mix 

Add the flour gradually until a dough is formed divide into two balls, wrap in cling film and chill for an hour

                                                 

Roll out the dough to around 3-4mm thick and cut two of each size cookie re-rolling and cutting with the leftover scraps

Place cookies onto greaseproof lined baking trays and place in a pre heated oven at 180 for 12 minutes or until firm then place on a wire rack to cool

                            

Knead and roll out the icing until it's as thick as you like to top the cookies 

Cut two lots of each size for the icing too

Brush each cookie with some jam to stick the fondant icing in place

Let the children assemble the stack starting from the largest to the smallest (cookie not child)

                                               
We had loads of fun decorating the tree but not as much fun as we all had eating it      
                                               

A do nothing day

We decided on Dalby forest yesterday where i took some beautiful autumn pictures! We enjoyed the cheap picnic, glad it was outdoors with the crumbs! The beautiful colours from yesterday have given way to a more murky scene today. It's one of those do nothing days, a day for catching up with my online life. My boys are laid sleeping on the sofa catching up on the hours they lost last night, thanks to Chase's teeth. I've been wondering about what to write about today as I don't want my blog just being about food. I said it was going to be a place to share tips about how to save money too so if anyone is reading my posts (thank you) please feel free to leave a little comment to share any ideas or just to say hi I would really appreciate it. So no food today however I was thinking about a cheap effective way I decorated my daughter's bedroom. I decided on a family tree on her wall so first I free handed a pencil version onto her wallpaper. Then when I was happy with it I bought some black paint and filled it in. I also bought some stick on butterflies and some of the plastic picture hooks that don't need glue or nails. I bought some picture frames off Amazon and hung them on the end of the branches. The finished piece looks rather impressive and worked out very cheap.