Butter Cookie Recipe

At church we are having a cookie sale next weekend. In talking with another baker she told me she was making butter cookies. Since it has been a while since I made cookies I asked if she would share the recipe so I could bake it. The recipe is simple and is for a fairly traditional Dutch butter cookie.

1 C Sugar
1 C Butter
2 C Flour
1 tsp baking soda

Cream butter and sugar. Add in flour then baking soda. Bake @ 325°F 12-15 min. Will be light in color but don't overbake.

While warm they literally melt in your mouth and fall apart. While cool they are yummy as well. Chris says they are too good for the kids to try. Though since the recipe only made 2 dozen he may also eat all of them before tomorrow.

Church Nativity

On the side tables at church they replaced the normal bouquet with a white porcelain nativity scene. GMan realized this as we were singing and went running up to see it. He stopped and started patting the different pieces. He's also looking at them with huge wondering eyes that only kids can get at Christmas. They feel a bit different than ours since we have plastic little people ones and he probably didn't know porcelain existed until now. I'm watching from the sidelines wondering how I'm going to get to the falling one before it smashes into 100s of pieces. He runs back to me nearly knocking me over and tells me that Jesus is in the manger so it must be Christmas! (He keeps asking if everyday is Christmas as we go through Advent this year. We have all the Jesus pieces from our nativities held back until Christmas Eve. They are able to play with them and move the pieces around as much as they want. Then the full nativity is out for play until Jan 6.) He then gives me a super long sweet hug. He asks to go back and see some more. I tell him he can go but he has to not touch. He then places his hand over each piece but doesn't touch as if he's counting each one and making sure that it is there.

Yay for Advent. I'm also super excited about him being more concerned with Jesus being in the manger and that meaning Christmas. We may not really understand everything yet, but at least that seems like a good first step in the whole, "Christmas is when Jesus was born" conversation.

Rum Bum Bo

Today we did a fair amount of cleaning and prepping for putting up Christmas tree. We put on Christmas music. GMan succinctly put it, "We are listening to Rum Bum Bo on the iPod so it must be Christmas." He's certain today was Christmas and tomorrow is Christmas...

Rum Bum Bo is what he calls "Little Drummer Boy" by Mercy Me. He's really into the song and requested it until July I think.

Thanksgiving at the Garden

Since we didn't go anywhere for Thanksgiving this year I took the kids to the Garden while Chris made tamales.  Only Chris didn't make tamales as he didn't have the appropriate corn husks.  We had some quite yummy pulled pork though.  We will make it into tamales once we get the husks.  The kids and I had a great day at the garden.  The garden trains were out so the kids were fascinated by them.  GMan was very concerned when one wasn't running.  He kept telling the people who worked there that the train wasn't working since he wanted to make sure it wasn't malfunctioning.  Since there weren't a lot of people around I let the twins crawl around on the ground.  They liked looking at the poinsettias up close and getting a non-stroller view of things.  Everyone gave them wide berth and mentioned how cute they are.  We also watched "Grinch" at night and everything seems to be going to put up the Christmas tree tomorrow.  We finally got a new one.  Chris decided that he wasn't putting up the old one again.  It is the one we got the first year we got married.  The lights on the pre-lit tree haven't worked for years and the limbs are falling out.  I think we got our $200 worth out of the tree though.  It was a good one and went to Arkansas Illinois North Carolina and Missouri.  :)

Here are the pictures for the garden day though.

GMan concerned that the Thomas under this tree wasn't running. 

Four (well 3) calling birds

Route 66 Half Marathon

I went to Tulsa for the Annual Route 66 Half Marathon that I do.  I managed to convince my mom and Philip to do it with me this year.  We all completed it and did decently.  The weather was FANTASTIC! Mom and I volunteered for the EXPO to hand out shirts and had a lot of fun.  

The boys went with me while the big kids stayed home with dad. Boys enjoyed playing with the animals at my mom's house especially Big E.  

We managed to make it out to see my dad and my uncle was there and it was great to see him and my aunt. This was also just before my dad went back into the hospital (he got home Thursday)...  Hopefully he won't have a long stay in the hospital this round.   

Big E hated the drive home.  During a break I thought he could drive...

4th Birthday Fun!

We had a party for GMan on Saturday.  Several friends came over and we all had fun.  A bossed everyone around and ran the show pretty much.  We made trains because GMan said that he wanted a "train race" so we had everyone paint trains and we were going to race them.  However everyone just played outside and we never got around to actually racing the trains. 

I made fondant and learnt that it was ridiculously easy to make.  We made Diesel 10s (his party theme) and other fun things. 

Halloween Fun!

A few pictures from Halloween and all the fun it entailed.  We did a church festival the Saturday before and then did the Garden for Ghouls in the Garden the Sunday before Halloween.  We had a Halloween costume contest at work and my counter part and I did Thing 1 & Thing 2. Everyone constantly confuses us (and half the people don't see it) so it worked out well. 

Zoo in the Fall

Got to make a trip to the zoo today. We did well for the kids and fun was had by all. Though we probably won't wear the cowboy hat again.

Picture Recap for Couple of Weeks

I suppose this is where the phrase "double trouble" comes in. 

Finally learned to can stuff.  I did butternut squash.  Super yummy! Boys ate one of these (the one that didn't pop) for lunch the next day.  Ate the ENTIRE thing in one go.  Nope not going to need a saving account to pay for that when they get older. 

Big E doing his daily yoga poses.  His downward dog is quite good. 

Reading with Big Sis. 

E likes to sit once he gets somewhere. 

M would rather move around and stays on his stomach.

Botanical Gardens

Japanese Garden today. We had a long day and explored new areas in the garden.

Yellow Belt

For those unaware we have signed A up for TaeKwonDo.  She loves it and gets to see one of her better friends from Kindergarten.  He's a blast to have around the house too.  Last Saturday we had our first testing for A.  She managed to hammer chop/hit the board and break it.  She also did pass her test and get a yellow belt.  She's the one in the video that is the last to break the board for her row.  

 

Bike Ride!

Recently A has learnt to ride a bike. She is quite good and she and I have taken a couple of rides together now. Today though everyone left me at home and went to the park. With the twins at least moving they will be fun at parks as they can start to play as well.

A has taken to first grade with extreme finesse. As normal, she adores her teacher and her teacher can do no wrong. She isn't fond of her spelling tests and constantly tries to not study.  She is doing rather well overall though.

G is getting back to not having A around all day. He is still not able to start Pre-K and I'm not sure we will enroll him next year either. He is remarkably smart and I'm not sure I was the school district to change that yet.

Both twins are highly mobile. A commented, "M moved" today because she thought he was supposed to stay in one place. M army crawls like he's going through basic training. E scoots a bit more, and he's determined to stand.

Hippos!

We played a little bit of hookie yesterday and went to the zoo. GMan and I got to pose next to the hippos and the elephants. Unfortunately the baby black rhino wasn't out or we may have stayed longer.

Watch out world!

https://youtu.be/s8n_7Yh8cWA

Month is Gone

We had a long HOT July here.  We were under heat advisory/watch/etc  for most of the month.  We also had several visits from people and went to OK for the 4th of July.  We ended the month sending A back to OK for Grandma Camp! Everyone has loved the break the past couple of days from each other and A is loving spending time with her cousin and grandma!

 Before Chris took the girls for camp I got a picture of all the kids on our stairs.  I think this turned out well.

 With it being just boys and mommy for the afternoon we decided to go to the splash pad.  We hadn't been to this one and probably won't go back.  The park part was good but the splash pad not so good.

Mommy and twins!

Baby feet! Sleeping babies even better.

 Big kids with Uncle J who came up to visit the last full week of the month.  Both big kids adore their uncle and were excited to have him sit between them in the back of the van.

We started A in taekwondo this month.  It is a black belt program and we are going to be able to get G through as well once he's big enough.  G called them "Pajamas" which is really funny because we aren't allowed to wear pajamas outside as a family rule.  :)

 Kids in a line at Grandma's house.  The twins are getting big and are starting to roll every which way.  They are also starting to eat non-milk food!  M has taken to that like a "duck on water" as Chris says with Big E not enjoying it as much.  He'll eat what he wants -- which isn't very much normally.  Big E also prefers non-pureed foods so that may be a problem until he gets his teeth.

Mom and I are going to do the Route 66 Half Marathon in November.  We did a training run in the hot hot sun and it was okay.  It was a "kick" off run at the Fleet Feet in Tulsa.  Not bad time for the heat and out of shape people who did it. ;)

Church Service

We regularly make it to church.  With twins and bigs who don't remember how to dress themselves this is normally quite the feat.  We even manage to be within five minutes most days.  There are thankfully several twin families at the church and we all kind of sit together.  We are all forgiving and just excited to see each other that it is fun! Sometimes we use the twins to help settle disputes.  A and GMan both love their brothers and if fighting the chance to hold one in church is the best.  Typically we end up something like this:

We also have had a fairly easy week this past week. After the birthday celebrations this is a relief.  This coming week will be VBS for the bigs so hopefully Chris can work everything out with just the littles.