Magic Cheerio Trick

Elsie knows a "magic" trick at less than 1 year old! How do you think she got that cheerio to stick to the tip of her nose? Scroll down to find out the secret!

Snot!

Scotcheroos!

Here's a family favorite. I brought these cookies to a girls' party the other night and they were devoured pretty quickly.

Scotcheroos

Lightly grease 9"X13" pan.

In large saucepan or pot (I use my dutch oven pot) bring 1 C sugar and 1 C light corn syrup to a boil. When sugar is completely dissolved stir in 1 slightly heaping cup of smooth peanut butter (I use Skippy or Jif). I have not tried this recipe with Adam's Peanut Butter which is what we normally eat, but somehow I think it wouldn't be the same ;) Mix well and then stir in 6 C Rice Krispies. Stir thoroughly and press into pan.

In microwave or double boiler melt 1 C butterscotch chips and 1 C semi-sweet chocolate chips until smooth. Spread on cookies. Refrigerate just until chocolate is set (if you leave them in too long they will be hard to cut into squares).

Christmas Cookies!

Weston had been eagerly awaiting the day we were to make our Christmas cookies. As you can see it was quite the project (especially for me)! Although it's a lot of work, I know the kids will treasure these Christmas memories.

Here we're wrapping up the rolling, cutting, and baking .

Grace loved the messy flour part. After this photo I went into the kitchen to make the frosting and Grace stayed on the chair playing with the leftover pile of flour for 10 minutes (she also loves to make a mess with her food; a bad habit I'm trying to discontinue ;)

Decorating! The kids loved creating their own cookie artwork.

Grace probably ate cookies and licked frosting off her fingers more than she decorated!

The perfect team! I frosted them and then Grace ate them!

Still going! This was very serious and hard work!

Apparently frosting is fun to squish between your fingers.

Weston's green Christmas tree with lots and lots of green sprinkles.

The finished product! We took these plates over to Dave and Julie next door. Don't tell them about the "licking the fingers" part of the process ;)

Santa's Vanilla Cookies

Makes about 2 dozen

2 C flour

3/4 C sugar

1/2 C margarine (softened)

2 tsp. vanilla

1 T water

1 egg

Mix wet ingredients and sugar. Add dry ingredients. Mix well. Requires lots of flour for rolling and cutting out. Roll dough NO THINNER than 1/4". If you roll it too thin the cookies end up dry and crunchy. Roll thick and they are moist and chewy! Bake at 400 degrees for 5-6 minutes.

The frosting is a basic powdered sugar recipe.

About 3-4 (or more) C powdered sugar, 1-2 T butter or margarine, 1 tsp. vanilla, and about 1-2 T milk. A alternately add powdered sugar and milk until I get the right consistency (it has to be pretty thick to not run off the cookie).

Best Friends!

Here's a few photos of Grace and her friend Laelie (daughter of Dave and Julie with whom we bought the duplex). I tucked their shirts into their big girl panties and pull-up :) Their two year-old knock-knees are very cute!

Tinker Toy Helicopter

Here's a helicopter Weston and I built out of Tinker Toys one day. We followed the photo on the canister to make our creation. Weston wanted to build the helicopter as my brother, Kyle, flies them in South Korea (although he flies the Chinook which is a lot bigger than this).

Crazy Girl!

Here's a few photos of Elsie doing her squishy face on the pack 'n play mesh. She thinks she is so funny when we laugh at her.

Official Christmas Photo Outtakes!

This was our very last photo taken after two nights of trying to get a nice Christmas photo for our Christmas cards. Mike and I are behind the camera but we had the same look on our faces as Elsie has on hers. This experience was a unique kind of torture ;)

The expression on all their faces is hilarious. You would think they were about to die from their suffering.

This is what Elsie kept trying to do when we wanted her to sit in one place. Weston and Grace weren't helping us out!

Elsie's expression is saying, "Why are you doing this to me? How could you be so cruel?"

Elsie likes to talk to her food when she eats so we told Weston and Grace to pretend they were Elsie talking to her pizza.

Meltdown!

Little Monkey!

This is the end of the first night's photo shoot. Can you believe we actually tried it again!?!