Making Gingerbread Cookies

Sunday when we were at my Grandparents house, my grandma had made dough for gingerbread cookies and had the kids help her roll it out and make the cookies, I think they all had a good time! They cookies were mighty tasty, they skipped the icing to make it less of a mess, but used mini M&M's, red hots and sprinkles instead to decorate them. My Grandma's cookie recipe is at the bottom of the pictures.

Courtney rolling out the dough

Britta and Stella taking it all in

Cutting out Gingerbread Men

Addie really loves flour!

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Goofy girl!

Granny's Gingerbread Cut-outs
1 c butter
1 c sugar
1 egg
1 c dark molasses
2 T vinegar
5 c sifted flour
1-½ tsp soda
½ tsp salt
2 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cloves

Cream butter, add sugar gradually.  Beat in egg, molasses and vinegar. Blend in sifted dry ingredients. Chill. Roll 1/8 to ¼ inch thick on floured canvas and cut into desired shapes.  Place on greased cookie sheets; decorate before baking or frost when cool.   Bake at 375 degrees 5 to 15 minutes depending on size and thickness of cookie.

DIY Christmas Ornaments

I had three drop-in's yesterday for daycare during the day, and I thought since it's December it'd be a good time to make these for a project. The two littlest ones didn't make them because they are under 1, but all of the other kids made them with assistance from me. I squirted all of the paint in the ornaments because I'm a control freak like that. Actually I was trying to eliminate a mess on little fingers and clothing! They had a great time making them and after the paint was swirled inside, I wrote their names and the year on them with a paint pen. It was a super easy craft and fun to make. Just have to be careful because the ornaments break easily if dropped.

The supplies---clear glass ornaments and acrylic paint

• Remove ornament top
• squirt paint in ornament
• replace top
• turn ornament to swirl paint and cover the inside

Finished product.

Ornaments the kids made---except for Stella---I made hers. Amelia didn't get her name on hers before I took the picture.

Paul has two ornaments because he insisted when the big kids got home from school that he needed to make another one and he wanted to write his own name on it. He did a pretty good job despite the "u" being upside down.

Oh, Christmas Tree...

We got our Christmas tree up and decorated on Monday evening. The kids were all very excited to get in on the action and help out. They even put ornaments on the tree and we only ended up with one broken one, so not too shabby! We also took some pictures of them for our Christmas card, that was a challenge. Addie was throwing a fit when Stella was wide awake and once we got Addie calmed down, Stella was out. But we did manage to rouse her for a few and Addie insisted on having her cup with her and I figured it wasn't worth the battle! Our house is mostly decorated. I still have to put up my Snow Village and find a good place for my nativity set. 

Time for ornaments in our pj's.

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Even baby Stella got in on the action!

All lit up!

One of our attempts at a Christmas card picture!

The Wrath of Adeline...

Sunday Adeline was playing upstairs and the rest of us were sitting in the living room watching the Vikings game, suddenly she quit responding when I was calling her name, so I ran up stairs to check on her and this is what I found...she was playing in Paul's room...well mainly with his fish tank.  I was laughing so hard that Adeline thought I was crying and kept saying "Mommy, cry. I sorry Mommy. Mommy cry." over and over again, it was so sweet that she apologized about what she did and she kept saying "Fishie hopital (hospital)" meaning fishie was sick! Luckily thus far Fishie is still alive and kicking swimming. Luckily for Addie Paul didn't find out until dinner tonight what had happened to fishie! I just had to grab the camera before Kevin and I cleaned up the mess. It was one of those moments I just had to shake my head about. And figured we'd get a good laugh about it when Addie is much older!

What we walked in to.

Yes, that is the fish food container floating in the water.

That would be fish food all over Paul's pillow, not puke.

Nice mess to clean up and lots of bedding to wash!

Thankfully Amelia and Paul were still at Grandma and Papa's when they happened, because I think Paul would have been hard to calm down after this. Thank goodness we had purchased an extra can of fish food when we got Fishie. Even after washing his bedding and vacuuming, his room still has a hint of fish food smell to it. Blech!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We surely did, even if it didn't go as I had planned. We were hosting this year for the first time ever, usually we go to my Grandparents or to Mary and Ron's. This year we opted to stay home and invited Mary and Ron, my mom, Tim and step-sister Samantha, My sister Amber, her boyfriend and our niece and Kevin's great-aunt Alice. Well Amber and Zane had to back out last minute because they didn't have anyone to dog sit for them, my step-dad Tim had surgery yesterday morning to remove the cancer from his colon and was extremely sore and unable to travel, but they are coming some time tomorrow afternoon. Alice called this morning and due to the weather decided to stay home. I was starting to wonder what I was going to do with 17 pounds of turkey. Thankfully I had knew by Wednesday evening that my mom and Tim wouldn't be coming until later, I decided to just cook one of the turkey breasts and then we will cook the other one tomorrow evening with my mom Tim. The meal turned out amazing if I do say so myself, I was pretty nervous about cooking it all, but it turned out great.

Here are a few pictures from today...

Stella fell asleep during tummy time and Addie thought baby Ellie needed to lay by Stella too.

Amelia just loves her baby sister.

Someone sneaked the who container of peanut blossom cookies thinking no one would notice!

She's really getting good at holding her head up during tummy time.

Stella's first Thanksgiving!

How to cook a turkey...

In kindergarten this year, they wrote how to cook a turkey and it was in the local paper this week. It was fun reading all of them. Kevin and I got a hoot out of Amelia's that I just had to scan it and share with all of you. They had it posted at school last week for conferences and she brought it home on Monday. I just love it! I need to laminate it so I can keep it forever so she can show her kids someday!

Wordless Wednesday