Garbage Bars (Cookie Day #4)

We are on to Day #4! This recipe was from Audrey and her little brother Liam! They are these deliciously gooey bars with a graham gracker crust, topped with chocolate chips, walnuts, coconut and smothered in sweetened condensed milk.......yum..... Her mom brought in a copy of this really old recipe from HER Grandma that she had scribbled out on a little card for her before she passed away. Like all good old recipes, they are stained with butter and yellowed with age and love!

And of course, we got out some aggression while pounding out the graham crackers.

They ended up resorting to using a rolling pin because their fists were getting tired :) They spread out all of the chocolate chips, walnuts and coconut very unevenly all over the crust but with tons of pride! in the end, the Garbage Bars turned out so yummy! The kids couldn't stop eating them~Grandma Deane passed on a fool proof recipe!

I told the kids that they could have a couple of chocolate chips when we were done....this was Sawyer's idea of just 'a couple'.....

P.S. Yes, I KNOW that 'peak' is misspelled up at the top, but I can't figure out how to change it...so it'll have to wait until Bill gets back! :)

Classic Spritz Cookies (Cookie Day#3)

Today we made Classic Spritz cookies that was Kaiya's family favorite! I was super excited to make these cookies, because Kaiy's mom, Kara brought in this fun 'cookie gun' that you got to use! After making up the almond cookie dough, you fill the canister with the dough, squeeze the handle and out come these perfectly shaped cookies! (or so I thought!) Kara had told me that the first couple of cookies on each sheet come out looking terrible, but then they get better.....but oh my word, mine looked like play dough lumps....so after going back online to re-watch the 'how-to' video again, we started cranking out some really good cookies!

Once again, the kids just loved being able to help out~After informing several times that, "Mom I know how to it, I really do!", Sawyer cracked the eggs for us! He actually did a lot better then I had predicted! He tapped them on the side of the bowl really gnetly until we heard a little crack and then dumped them in like a pro! With no shell in sight! Good Job Buddy!

Everyone's favorite part was their chance to use the gun! Usually when we are making cookies, I let the kids do most of it (the reason for very misshapen, odd sized cookies) but today was hard for me to let them do it themselves because I WANTED TO USE THE GUN! :)

Now I'm pretty sure I need one of those cookie guns....

Forest of Thanks

In preparation for Thanksgiving next week, we have been talking here at Day Care quite a bit about the things that we are thankful for. It was a bit challenging at the beginning, trying to get them to go beyond the Sunday School answers of family and friends.....but in our daily chats about it, they've come up with some really unique ones such as: my hands, pull ups, ice cream, the free cookies at the bakery counter, Happy Meals, bubbles, presents, pink (just the color, not a pink something....just pink.) and when we get to color with markers. Then the most honest answer, "I'm Sanksful for MEself." And there you have it :)

We made trees of thanks today and this one was Sawyer's!

What a wonderful forest of Thanks!!

It's been a so good talking everyday about the things in life that are a true blessing, whether large or small. It guess that's something that I should be doing every single day, but unfortunately a lot of the time I'm nagging my husband, smothering my child, yelling at Phoebi to stop putting her head on my shoulder when I'm watching TV or complaining about how much I 'need' an SUV......God has blessed me, he really has and i need to remember that.

Orange Drops (Cookie Day #2)

Today was Day #2 in our 12 Days Of Cookies! We baked Orange Drop cookies brought in by Sawyer's little friend Boyde! They are these great buttery shortbread cookies that have a great orangie zing to them!

All the kids had their aprons on and were ready to 'help'! They each took turns dumping, measuring and stirring. Baking is such a great time to incorporate some math as we add things together! As usual, we made a double batch so that everyone had a baggie to take home!

Sawyer and his Buddies~Avery and Dane!

The three stooges just LOVE having their picture taken if you couldn't tell! :) They kept saying, "Take one more! Take one more!" What hams.....

Now our little ladies would have none of that! :) Kendyl and Charlotte like the more mature look!

And of course, the last step: Hand Washing.

This takes waaaay too long each time and usually ends up in some sort of scuffufle about how was in line first, or who didn't use soap, or who used too much soap and what temperature each of them like the water to be when it's their turn.....but we had a great morning of baking!

We were at the mall on Sunday with our friend Sam and her son Walter. We grabbed a happy meal for Sawyer at Burger King before heading up to the play place and as we sat down for him to eat, with much excitment in his voice exclaims, "Look Mom! I found GOD!" and this was what he was pointing to:

Let's Get Crafty!

I have been so blessed to find myself with a tremendous group of girlfriends! In the few years of living here in Omaha, we have formed this posse of girls (and their families!) that have stuck together through thick and thin, weddings, babies, first time home buying, tears, laughter, vacations and snow and adding people as we went along! We decided instead of doing our Girl's Night Out, we'd do a Girl's night IN! With Christmas just around the corner, we thought we should get our craft on! After a very long and indecisive trip to Hobby Lobby, we hunkered down in my basement to make some Christmas wreaths!

Not without fueling up on some pizza first!

And before you knew it, the creative juices began to flow, there was glitter flying, "U" pins guarded and a continuous yelps and shrieks from finger tips being burnt by hot glue...but all in the spirit of Christmas! :)

I was pretty sure we were going to burn the house down with the number of glue guns that we had, but it's still intact! Unfortunately though, some of us underestimated and miscalculated how much of things we were going to need, so some creations went momentarily unfinished....but not even that could damper our spirits-not with NSYC Christmas playing in the background! (It was the only Christmas CD I could find stashed in my CD case from High School OK?!?!)

We had SUCH A BLAST!!!!! It was really neat to see all of our different styles and personalities come out as we got crafty! I'm not including a picture of the aftermath of the wreath session that was all over my carpet, but all I can say is I'm so glad we had invested in buying a Dyson....

Kids say the Darndest things...

Right before lunch:

(setting the scene: Sawyer and Dalton have all the legos and farm animals sprawled out all over his bedroom floor.)

Me: "Sawyer and Dalton, you guys need to clean up that mess please so that we can have lunch. As soon as it's all put away, we can eat, so you better hurry up!"

...a few moments go by...

Sawyer saunters his way into the kitchen: "My neck wants to eat lunch right now...."

At lunch time:

(setting the scene: Dalton has finished his milk and now get's to drink juice.)

Me: "Sawyer, you need to drink your milk and then afterwards you can have some juice."

A few moments go by.......

Sawyer: "Milk makes my leg hurt...."

12 Days of Cookies

I am a firm believer of not putting up a shred of Christmas decor until your fridge is stocked full of Thanksgiving left overs. (My neighbor, Henry, already has his Christmas lights up and on at night! Really?!?) With that being said, the day care kids and I have cheated that a little bit by starting one of our fun traditions just because of time crunching. Every year the kids and I do the 12 Days of cookies. This year, I had each of the families send in their favorite cookie recipe and why it was special to them. So between now and Christmas break, they will each get to go home with 12 different kinds of cookies along with all the recipes! We started early this year so we didn't have them so jam packed like we did last year!

We started out with Oreo balls, otherwise known as 'Reindeer Poop' from Charlotte's family. The kids had such a blast crushing up the Oreos, rolling them into the balls and dipping them into the dark chocolate! They were SO good! I'm so excited to try all these new and old cookie recipes that you know are just-out-of-this-world good to make it into the 'family favorites' category!

Sawyer helping to put cookies in baggies for everyone to take home!

One of our favorite shows to watch right now is Modern Family. It's a hilarious family comedy of obviously, the modern family! We usually have dinner and watch the show with our good friends, Chad & Stephanie! We either do it at their house or ours and just have a night of good food, laughs and great company!

Last night we all joined forces in the kitchen and it was really fun! The food turned out awesome, if I do say so myself~We had stuffed chicken marsala, with a delicious sauce, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, sauteed broccoli, and shrimp bruschetta. D-Lish!

At Weekend at Mahoney

(sorry guys...some of us are missing....)

We had an AWESOME weekend away with all our friends and no kids at a cabin in Mahoney State Park! It was a really tough figuring out a weekend that worked around everyone's schedules, babysitters and availability.....but this was it! We jammed sixteen people into an eight person cabin, so needless to say it was pretty cozy!

The first night we just played games and hung out!

Saturday morning we went for a walk with Brandon, Laney and Melody down to the train tracks and near the river.

We thought we looked like we were a band.

Bill's offer to carry me on his shoulders for a while was short lived after I kept getting whacked in the face with branches full of dead leaves....

The damsels in distress!

This is our emotional, violent, battle-to-the-bitter-end championship Dutch Blitz game! We played in pairs and James and I (left of me in the brown shirt) pretty much spanked everyone else up to the very end.....when we lost by like two points......still a touchy subject.....

We spent most our time, eating, chatting, napping, hiking, and playing Dutch Blitz, Catch Phrase, Battle of the Sexes with a little time out to watch the football game!

Two couples were in charge of each meal and it worked out really well! Wives cooked and the husbands cleaned up! Arliss and Laney made homemade biscuits and gravy with hash browns for breakfast. Ashton and I made Jack Daniel's pulled pork sandwiches for lunch. Emily and Melody made these really fun 'meal in a bag' things with hamburger, potatoes, carrots, and onions for dinner! They were sooo yummy! Then the next morning, Erin and Steph had fruit, bagels, doughnuts and muffins for breakfast!

We had such a great time hanging out and just relaxing! We hope that this will be a yearly tradition, to leave the kiddos and just get away for a little while!