Finishing Cookies

So here we are again. We chilled our cookie dough for an hour (and had some lunch) and now we are ready to make cookies. As you can see, all the helpers are here. Lauren is excited to use cookie cutters.

Cookie cutting is very serious as you can see.

First batch in the oven.

Uh oh, we have a loose monster trying to help.

Mama better hold him before he pulls everything off the table. He just wants to help.

He gets to be a taste tester.............he likes them.

I think we have a few cookies to decorate now.

Lauren is ready with all the supplies.

We have to take a dinner break. Lauren is learning why people buy the take and break cookies or the rolls. "Cookies take a LONG time to make, we've been doing this ALL day"...this is what she told Mike when he got home.

Back to the cookies...decorating. She is making beautiful cookies.

One pooped helper is ready for bed.

He didn't even help and he's pooped.

Lauren did the cookies facing the camera and once everyone was tucked in mom did the others to be ready for the family (I did leave about 15 more for Lauren to decorate for us).

After a LONG day I was ready for bed. Hope everyone enjoys their cookies.

Making Cookies

Today we are going to make sugar cookies. Lauren is going to be my assistant in her first time to make "real" sugar cookies. (I just bought a rolling pin last week so that tells you how often I have done this). I do make chocolate chip cookies from scratch but it has been since I've lived at home with mom I've made sugar. So I decided since Lauren is out of school for the rest of the week we would do this together.

She is all ready with all the ingredients and the recipe. (She is learning how to read the recipe today)

We are mixing the ingredients, moving right along.

Well, Austin decided he is not going to nap right now so I guess we have another helper. Let's see how that goes.

We gave him something to play with while we mix. He can learn to measure and roll.

As you can see we have lost the binkie, he's getting serious now.

I do what with this?

How does this thing work?

Is this how I do it?

The ingredients are all mixed in now we have to wrap it to chill.

Austin is looking at that like he needs it. Stay in your seat young man!!

I am getting it all wrapped up for the fridge. (Lauren thought I needed to be in a picture)

All of our stuff is ready for the next step, rolling an cutting. Then the fun part, decorating.

We are just waiting for our hour to be up.

Stay tuned for more from the cookie makers.........................

ABC's of Thanksgiving

On Tuesday we had our first school program. The first grade did the ABC's of Thanksgiving.

This is all the first graders waiting for the program to start. They are all Pilgrams and Indians.

Austin is wondering what we are doing during nap time.

The program has started and Lauren is moving along waiting for her turn. (She was an Indian)

Almost her turn.......

And here she is reciting her lines........."Now it's a time for family and friends to give thanks together. Eat lots of good food, watch parades and football games. It's also the start of winter holiday season."

She was the last of all the lines. She was loud so everyone could hear, she did great!!

Then they all sang songs about Thanksgiving.

Here is our Indian after it was all over (she's a cute indian!)

All in all it was an okay show.

Halloween

Halloween, the one day of the year that no matter what you wear no one will really care. So we take our children and dress them in crazy outfits so they can go out and get all kinds of candy they don't really need. (A little secret, I am not the biggest fan of Halloween but I dress the kids and let them have some fun.)

This was Austin's first Halloween, not that he knew what was going on, but I think he had fun. I still had Lauren's first costume so decided he was going to be an elephant. He not only was an elephant but a pumpkin also. We got this cute outfit from Gran and since there was that really cold day right before Halloween he got some costume practice in as a pumpkin. He thought it was funny.

Here he is pumpkining aroung at Grema's.

Isn't he the cutest pumpkin you've ever seen?

So now that he's ready, here he is as an elephant. We went to Scare on the Square in downtown McKinney to collect candy for Lauren but Austin of course thought all the people were there to see him. He would let out a squeal and grab attention all around town.

He was having a great time in his costume.

Here is our elephant with our German girl.

Lauren was our beautiful little German girl. This costume was a find of my Aunt's in an original Sanger Harris box (at a garage sale foe I think $5). She gave it to Lauren as a gift thinking she would like it and we decided it would make a perfect costume. Lauren loved wearing it!!!

Fits the part just perfect (who knew heritage could help with your Halloween costume).

So once the pictures were taken it was off to fill the rest of the bag with candy and say hi to Grema and Bapo's neighbors.

I think we got enough candy to last until next Halloween. Lauren had fun and Austin enjoyed his stroller ride everywhere so I guess that's what it's all about.

Adventure 2, Round up on the Range

So now we are in the middle of October at Round up on the Range. As you can see we had a booth here selling our cards, necklaces, aprons and other goodies so this was a working day for me but a fun day for the kiddos.

Austin and I arrived early in the morning and off he went with Bapo to find some "stuff". He has a frisbee here already.

Once they had some fun and he got tired of Bapo he came and told Grema all about his fun.

More fun was to be found here though as he is riding an bucking horse and having a grand time.

Once they had breakfast Mike and Lauren came to see what they could find. As you can see Lauren already found the free frisbees.

The cowgirl in the pink hat was ready for some fun.
How about a stick horse ride!!!

Then she was on to the stick horse barrel racing. She's a regular rodeo queen.

Of course Dad is always finding neat things to take pictures of in between pictures of the kids. I really like this one.

Back to the fun, Lauren found the petting zoo.

Finally she had enough of the stick horses and found the real ones

Hold on to your hat cowgirl!!!

A nice ride for Lauren the cowgirl.

During the day they had all kinds of shows going on in the barn. This one was the friends of Skidboot. We were enjoying the show!!!

And here is Cowgirl Lauren and Cowboy Austin tipping their hat goodbye to another fun-filled day on the range.

Happy Trails until I post again.

(Next post will be Halloween pictures.)