This is one of our favorite cookie recipes courtesy of Gourmet magazine. They look like little snowballs and they taste delish.

Ingredients:

• 2 sticks (1 cup) of unsalted butter, softened
• 3 cups confectioner's sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup finely chopped pecans, or walnuts
• 3/4 teaspoon of salt

Directions:

1. First beat your softened butter and about 1/2 cup of the confectioners sugar in a large bowl until the mixture is pale and fluffy (about four minutes with your electric mixer). Beat in vanilla. Then add flour, nuts, and salt and mix at low speed until just combined. The dough needs to be covered and chilled for at least six hours in fridge. {I have sometimes only chilled it for two hours when pressed for time}

2. After chilling let dough stand at room temperature for 15 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Roll level teaspoons of dough into 3/4 inch balls and arrange about  2 inches apart on lightly buttered large baking sheet.

3.  Bake in 375 degree F oven on the middle rack until bottoms are pale golden brown, 8-10 minutes.

4. While they are baking sift remaining 2 1/2 cups confectioners sugar into large shallow bowl.

5. Immediately transfer hot cookies to confectioners sugar, gently rolling to coat well, then transfer to cookie rack to cool completely. Roll cookies in confectioners sugar again when cooled.

Finally eat and enjoy!

We arrived safely last Wednesday. We will be staying with my sister Belinda and her spouse Joe over the next few weeks. The weather was very chilly when we first got here and each of us has some form of a cold now. Aside from being sick we are enjoying ourselves and stuffing our faces. We cannot get enough of the breakfast tacos here and there is nothing like a warm homemade tortillas with mashed avacado in it . YUMMMY!!!

We are getting some work done in the midst of all of the chaos that comes along with having a big family. Today Lesley did some geometry in math and Noah worked on his multiplications and other math. Both reviewed grammar rules and poems. Lesley read some sayings from her Dictionary of Idioms and Noah studied his spelling words. Lesley did vocabulary work and read The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.

Noah has also been learning and participating in the daily care of my brother-in-law who is a parapalegic and confined to a wheelchair. Joe was paralyzed from the neck down at the age of sixteen in a hunting accident. Through therapy he has gained some feeling/movement back in his arms and chest thus he can now feed himself and use his hands/arms somewhat.

Well the effects of my OTC medicine are kicking in so I'm off to bed.

Ciao,

Stephanie