Makin' Cookies

For Father's Day this year I had wanted to bake cookies with the children to send to Charles' dad and granddad who live out of town. Father's Day came and went but we decided late was better than never so a couple weeks ago we went to work!



First we made lemon snaps, a recipe we tried recently and really liked.



The girls smelling the lemon juice.

Getting to try one, I told Caleb he didn't always have to look at the camera like that...

...so then he gave me a nice smile. :)

Starting on the chocolate crinkles.

What ya doin'?

Giving it a try...

Look Mommy!

We're cute.

C & C

Miss Mercy

Scoopin' the sugar.

Making it just right.

Busy workers

btw, I did apply the powdered sugar to the noses, it's just too cute for pictures. ;)

So much fun!

First you scoop the dough...

...then...oops, you didn't see that!

Big scoop

She's saying, "Cookie!".

Rolling balls

Yikes! That was a definite washing the hands!

hmmmOur balls were very interesting.

If I hold my tongue just right...

...I'm sure it will make the cookies taste better...

...I think!

I was there too. Nursing a baby with one hand and rolling balls with the other.

We made a big mess.

But what did you expect?!

We had fun. :)

Before baking.

*smile*

We baked chocolate chips one in between.

Yummy!

They turned out so pretty. :)

It was a lot of work but the children enjoyed themselves so much and we made some wonderful memories together. :)

Not My Child Monday

So I came upon this girls' blog awhile back and normally she does a post called "Not Me Monday". Don't know if any of you have seen it somewhere but they can be quite hilarious and very true. :) I had thought about doing one before but just never had. Well today she is shaking it up a bit and doing a And since one of my "not me's" was going to be about one of my children I thought that today was as good a day as any to join in. So here goes...

It was definitely NOT my 5 year old little man that carried his 4 day old baby sister to the door to show my friend when I had gone to let her in. Yikes! I hadn't shown him how to carry her yet so that was definitely NOT my child.

I do NOT have a 4 year old who would go up and carry on a conversation with a scarecrow who was her height and then kiss it before she walked away. MY child would have more brains than that!

My 21 month old did NOT walk over to the diaper pail while I was changing her sister and stick her hand in the poopy diaper that was sitting on top waiting for me to wash it out. That was definitely NOT my child.

My 5 year old son does NOT yell out "Mommy don't look at that naked lady!" every time he sees a woman in a bikini or camisole top. Although I wouldn't disagree with him my son would NEVER be that blunt.

When at the beach last week I did NOT turn around and find my 4 year blond daughter standing atop the tall red lifeguard chair that clearly states "keep off" with her arms spread high very proud of herself! That would never have been MY child, besides, she can't read yet anyway. ;)

While sitting and nursing my baby I did NOT have to tell the 5 year old to stop his 21 month old sister from taking kleenex's one by one into the bathroom and flushing them down the toilet. MY daughter would never do such a thing.

When going to a prenatal midwife appointment my son would NEVER walk into the waiting room and then run out loudly announcing to me that he couldn't go in there by himself because there was a "bad guy" sitting in there when a black gentleman was in there waiting for his wife. MY son would NOT be that rude.

My sweet 4 year old does NOT come up to me almost every day and ask me if the 10lbs of postpartum weight that I still have to lose around my waist is her "baby brother" that she is wanting. My daughter would NOT be that insensitive to my feelings! :P

My almost completely potty trained 21 month old daughter did NOT come up to me with her wet panties wadded up in her hand saying "pee pee Mommy". That is definitely something she would NOT do.

This same little toddler does NOT have a severe problem with eating toothpaste where I have to make sure I remember to put the toothpaste up out of reach or else I might walk into the bathroom and find her in there sucking on the tube. My child does NOT have such an addiction!

And although I know it's not a "Not Me" Monday I'm going to put one down just because...

It was definitely NOT me who when the afforementioned incident with the 4 year old and the lifeguard chair happened did NOT consider having her climb back up there and pose for a picture because I thought it was so funny. A thought like that did NOT enter my head. :)

Well, that was fun! You should try it sometime. Hope I didn't scare you away from being friends with me and my kids now that you know what we are really like! :P

PS You can't tell who is the one that gives me a run for my money most of the time, can you? LOL!

Hope you had a wonderful Monday!

6 weeks old

Little Miss Julia is a chubby 10lb 4oz 6 week old baby girl today!

Hope each one of you have a lovely weekend!

1 month, I mean 5 week old pictures :)

I had wanted to take some pictures when Julia turned 1 month but did I remember? Of course not! So then I thought I would grab some 5 week pictures, that's close enough, right?


I had seen a lot of baby and maternity pics incorporating blocks in them recently and I wanted to try it. I wasn't as prepared as I should have been and was scrambling around and I had a 21 month old who was being oh so not helpful! ;P

So here is how our crazy photo shoot started, Julia is making sure her bow is just right. :)


So I tried the blocks like this.

And then I turned them like this.

Then I turned her on her side and PLEASE do not ask me why in the world I left the blocks in this order! I didn't realize it until I downloaded them onto the computer that I had pretty much ruined the pictures. I wish I had caught it while I was doing it. :(

But I did like how some of them turned out.

Julia however got tired of it really quick!

Hi!

I'm sweet.

Can we PLEASE be done?!

baby girl

I had no idea what I was doing...

She did not want to lift up her head for the picture.

She started to fall asleep.

I love the cloth diaper bump, it was challenging to balance blocks on it though. :)

In my jean jumper with the pockets on the rear end.

She konked out.

Zzzzzzzzzzz

My sweet girl

j u l i a

little tootsies

Sorry to bombard you with not so great pictures. I just clicked away in between Mercy messing with the baby, the blocks, the blanket, the blocks, the baby, the blocks...well...you get what I mean! :P

I love her so much.

Boy, typing out a post one-handedly can sure take time...oh...and don't remind me that she turns 6 weeks on Friday!

Tree Hill Nature Center

I'm so sorry I've been neglecting the blog...I've been lazy. :)

Amelia and I had tried for a couple of months to go here. We wanted a change from the zoo but someone either got sick or had other events that messed up going. So we finally made it there last week. It was an overcast July morning so the heat wasn't incredibly intense and we didn't get carried of by mosquitoes (wow).

Here's the gang, growing up way too fast.

Samuel 5, Charis 4, Caleb 5, Timothy 8, Mercy 21m & Peter 7





Looking at the minnows.






Oops, sorry, I forgot to rotate this. Mercy is squatting, trying to copy the boys laying down on the boardwalk. :)

Amelia said, "Look at me!"

She took pics of the kids enjoying the science lab.

They enjoyed looking in the microscopes (or telescopes as mine call them!).

Charis gave Amelia a "look". ;)

Gotta be on the stools like the big kids!

Looking at the turtles.

Checking stuff out.

Timothy with a turtle shell and animal pelt.

Peter and Caleb check out the snakes.

snake skin...

A soft shell turtle, I believe.

About 5x a day at least Mercy plops herself down wherever she is at and says, "I hold her!" She did it while we were there. :)

We had a nice time and the air conditioning in the center was wonderful after walking the trails. I had gone here when I was between 10-13 years old it seems like yesterday, it's hard to believe that it's been 14-17 years ago!

Oh, and I wish I had had the camera out to capture this but I'll just tell you about it. Charis is such a sweet fluffy headed blond. :) After we walked the trails we walked past a cute (not mean looking) scarecrow that was about 4' tall. My dear daughter walked up to him, took him by both hands and started talking to him, she then gave him a kiss and walked on. I about died laughing cause this was such typical behavior of her. Talking to and kissing a scarecrow, that's my girl!

She even made sure to tell him goodbye on our way out...lol! :P