Happenstance

While Mark and I have been together since 2006, we decided to try to follow the traditional wedding gifts for each year's anniversary.  For our first anniversary I wrote Mark 100 love notes and folded them into origami.  I honestly went into this thinking the hardest part would be folding the paper into something resembling origami. But after about 10 notes, I realized it was impossible for me to write 100 meaningful love notes at one time. In all honesty, some of these are just funny and a few verging on gibberish. 

Soooooo.....of course I thought I would force all of my sisters to help me bake Christmas gifts. It seemed like a win-win scenario for me: more help means less time baking and less work. Plus, I decided to cut down on the recipes this year.  We started with Gluten Free Gingerbread Bars . INGREDIENTS : 1 3/4 cups brown sugar 2/3 cup butter 1/4 cup molasses 2 teaspoons ground ginger 2 eggs 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1 cup all-purpose flour 1 cup whole wheat flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon salt DIRECTIONS : 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x13-inch baking pan. 2. Mash the brown sugar, butter, and molasses together in a bowl with a spoon until the mixture is creamy and thoroughly combined. Mix in the ginger, eggs, and vanilla extract. In a separate bowl, combine the all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir 1/4 of flour mixture into the butter mi...