Almond Joy Cookies

I love those Almond Joy Pieces, but I was really in the mood for something in a cookie form. :) I found a basic sugar cookie recipe but I didn't have enough flour so I had to adjust measurements and then substitute some ingredients.  I think I pretty much made up my own recipe. :-D  They actually turned out really good!!

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup cream cheese
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup Egg Beaters (or  3 egg yolks)
1 3/4 cup flour
1 cup Almond Joy Pieces

Preheat the oven to 325.  Beat butter and cream cheese with an electric mixer for 30 seconds.  Add sugar and baking soda.  Mix until combined.  Mix in Egg Beaters and vanilla.  Beat in as much flour as you can with the mixer and stir in the rest.  Stir in Almond Joy Pieces.  Drop by the tablespoonful on a slight greased cookie sheet.  Bake 15-20 minutes, until the edges are slightly browned.

Wordless Wednesday: Blast from the Past

I'm seriously dying right now. I was flipping through our pictures, pondering the daunting task of organizing them.  I came across and about melted into a puddle all over the floor!! Hannah is about 15 months old here.  We all forget just how chubby she really was. I'm pretty sure she wears the same as she did then. ;)

I probably shouldn't be looking at these pictures since I'm feeling a major flare up of baby fever coming on.

Linked up with Wordless Wednesday at Mama to 4 Blessings.

First Soccer Game

Hannah the Swift

This past Saturday was Hannah's first soccer game! It went very well. All the kids got to play in at least two quarters and received a lot of help from their coaches.  This is 6-7 year olds, so it's not quite so hardcore. They didn't keep score which definitely made it more fun. :)  Hannah played goalie for a quarter and stopped a goal! She had a lot of fun! I'm very proud!

Stopping a goal! Woohoo!

getting direction from Mr Donald

giving Mr. Donald a high five

Run Hannah Run!

We have a game tonight, practice on Thursday, and another game on Saturday.  This all will last about a month. Busy, busy. :) My parents will be in town this weekend, so they'll get to see Hannah play.  Hopefully Hannah won't stop mid-field to wave to Grendy and Papaw.  Oh, well, she probably will and that's okay. :)

My Heart and Mind 10 Years Later

I find myself deeply saddened, as if it the attacks just happened. While I was sad ten years ago, it's hitting me differently now.  I hear about all the children and spouses who lost someone in those vicious attacks while going about a normal day just like any other, and I think about us going through the motions of our routines only to have our lives absolutely halted.  I can't bear to imagine.

Ten years ago I was a sophomore in college and in biology class (a class which I later dropped) when the attacks actually occurred.  I did not hear about the attacks until I was driving home after class.  I was flipping through the radio stations trying to find some music, but it was all news. I figured it must be something pretty important so I listened, and that's how I found out.  I didn't know Ryan then (we met a year later), but he was in basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, MO.  Of all places! His mom was losing her mind since she didn't know he was going to be immediately shipped somewhere.  I remember a rumor going around that they were going to start up the draft again and remember feeling relieved my brothers were only 13 at the time. Kinda silly, I guess. Ironically one of my brothers is now a soldier, training at Fort Sam Houston. 

We are a nation that needs Jesus, and all we can do is pray and share. I will never forget.

Week in Review #42: Ff is for Farm and Family Reading

The activity you see above was by far my favorite and the idea just came to me while flipping through my Pinterest boards.  The girls "built" a farm with various printables.  All I did was glue on the "sky" and "grass" on big pieces of cardboard, and then I let the girls creativity take over. :) Autumn was more interested in seeing how much glue she could layer on. Four (!) glue sticks later we were done. Glad I stocked up during all the back to school stuff. :)

The completed works:

All is well on Hannah's side of the pasture...

..unfortunately Hurricane Autumn went through and
mixed everything up a little. :)

More fun from the week:

Building airplanes (this was her doing!
Impressive!)

Making numbers with the new Play Doh set
her daddy got her

Fall Bingo

Flower puzzle

Hannah pointing to something intriguing
in her math

My cool mom moment of the week--licking beaters while
I made snickerdoodles!

Isn't this the cutest coloring page? Capital
and lowercase letters are each a different
color so you can see what the picture is
(in case it wasn't obvious :p)

Hannah is doing great with the Daily Language Review.  Of course the concepts aren't really review for her so we're having to spend a day or so more on each assignment, which is fine. She's understanding what makes a sentence and what doesn't. Everything else is going along just fine as well. She's still very much into astronomy. On Wednesday we talked about how cold Mercury gets when it's not facing the sun.  I asked her to draw in her notebook what Mercury looks like when it's cold. She drew Mercury in an ice cube! I just laughed out loud! How clever is she!

I did not stress myself this week at all. We got back from Clarksville on Tuesday, so we only had a 3-day week.  We still got the basics done--math, language, Bible, and astronomy. Autumn has recently taken to this animal puzzle game on my phone and can put together all of them in mere minutes. I was sneaky and put it at the next level of difficulty and she still did well. :)

 During meals we have picked up again on reading Little House in the Big Woods.  The kids didn't seem very interested after a couple chapter, but then Hannah asked me to read some one day during lunch and we've done it every day. Although Hannah has the tendency to interrupt constantly, just with whatever random thought that pops into her head (Gee, Ryan, I wonder where she gets that from!).  Today I finally had to tell her that if she interrupts then I was going to stop reading and we  would just pick it up again the next time.  She seems unhappy to stop so abruptly, so maybe it'll work.

The weekend is already looking full--soccer game, birthday party, and church! Fun stuff!

Printables

Build-A-Farm: Barnyard Friends by Whimsy Primsy, At the Farm Printables
Flower Puzzle: 2 Teaching Mommies
ABC coloring pages: Hidden Picture Color by Letters
Bingo cards: DLTK's Custom Bingo Cards

This post is linked up to the Weekly Wrap-Up.

A Tropical Dora Birthday

Despite their appearance, I assure you they
were quite thrilled with the  festivities

Meagan and I were talking about both wanting to give a Dora themed party for our girls (who are 15 days apart) and my mom had leftover tropical/Hawaiian decorations from an office party. We decided to combine the two, and an adorable shin dig was born! 

My mom had this great idea for "birthday trees".  Autumn and Emma each had one with their presents under it.

And the cake! YES! So proud of it! I made it and did the frosting while Meagan bought the Dora and Boots and put all that together. Way better than anything Wal-Mart or Publix could have done!

I dyed half the frosting blue for the water, obviously, and spread on the rest of the frosting and covered it with graham cracker crumbs for sand.  At first I was going to use brown sugar for sand.  Meagan bought the Dora and Boots figures and the trees were from my mom's leftover decorations.

I am very excited by how everything turned out, and that it was still hot enough to swim! Just a couple days later it was 65 degrees outside! Crazy! Although I am very pleased with the change in weather. Long overdue if you ask me.  

Wordless Wednesday: Paging, Dr. Emma!

My niece, Emma, has really taken to playing doctor and giving us all "exams" and even the occasional diagnosis (I once had dead crabs in my stomach...ouch).  What better gift for her birthday than a doctor's kit! I found this Melissa & Doug set on Amazon complete with lab coat! I think her favorite thing is giving everyone shots, probably to get revenge on all the immunizations she's receiving over the past few years. ;)