Making Cookies

We did this so long ago, but I thought I would still post it.  (I can not get on top of normal day to day things at home right now, so once I do, I'll post more often.)

A few weeks before Christmas, Lucy and I made sugar cookies: my favorite!  Lucy helped with every step, and she was amazingly helpful!

Lucy helped make the cookie dough first, but Matt wasn't around for taking photos.  Here is the sugar cookie recipe:
1 cup butter
1.5 cups powdered sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
2.5 cups lour
1 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp salt

Beat butter and sugar until fluffy.
Add egg & vanilla
Add all dry ingredients
Chill
Roll dough & cut out shapes
Bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 400 degrees for 6 minutes

While we waited for the cookie dough to chill.  We made the frosting.  Here is the recipe and the results:
1/4 cup softened butter
1 lb (3 & 3/4 cups) powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
(good on cookies, cake, cup cakes, graham crackers, fingers, spatulas...)

At first Lucy was really nervous about licking the frosting off the mixer paddle.  But then she realized what it was!

The spatula was good too!  (Don't worry!  I licked out the mixing bowl, and the other spatulas from when we mixed in the colors.  Lucy does come by the sweet tooth honestly!)

Then we moved on to cutting out the cookies.  We had quite a few misshapen and blobby ones this year.

Lucy wanted to roll the dough too, which she did surprisingly well!  She was in general over zealous with the cookie cutter and cut chunks off other cookies and over zealous with getting them off the counter and onto the cookie sheet.  There were a few times when she tried to pry them up with her fingers.

Once they were done baking, we moved right on to frosting.  Lucy "frosted" one cookie before realizing this was the yummy frosting which led to her just eating the frosting.

I called down to Matt to come and take some more pictures and told him someone was eating all the frosting.  When he came up he said "Who is eating all the frosting?"


"ME!"

 Lucy next decided that she should do the sprinkles.  Almost all of them went into her little bowl. 

Notice: Pacifier is on the counter and not in the mouth!

 Here is a picture of how they looked.  Lucy's were the 4 with minimal frosting.  Guess who ate those: Mommy!  Lucy wanted "the pink ones!"

So YUMMY!!!  Maybe I will make stars for New Years or something like that...  hmm...

Someone LOVES frosting!

Making cookies like this is one of my favorite things to do at Christmas, so it was a lot of fun to share it with my little girl!

We are still here!

Wow!  It has been over a month since I've posted.  I'm sorry about that.  Life over here has been super busy: house remodel, Christmas decorating, shopping, & baking, having a 2 year old, work, classes/studying. 

Our big change is the remodel!  Here are some pictures of our house & Lucy's 2nd birthday party which was the Saturday after Thanksgiving.


Looking into the kitchen from the living room.



Our "wine area" in the dining room.



Our new entertainment center area in the living room.  We still don't have the stone on the fireplace.  Apparently the guy who was supposed to order it got fired before ordering it and no one realized it.



This was the spread for Lucy's party.  We had a butterfly theme.



Lucy had a lot of fun at the party.  Here she is wearing her new princess dress from Aunt Jenna and I have no idea what is in her hands.  When she opened up clothes from Grandma Ehinger, she threw the package as soon as she knew it was only clothes.  Then when all the gifts were open she came over to me and with her hand by her mouth like she was telling a secret said "More presents?"  Everyone heard and laughed so hard! 

We love our remodeled kitchen and 

Fall Happenings

It's been a while since I've posted anything other than house stuff.  Here are a few pictures we have accumulated on the camera.

Here is our silly little family.  Lucy has been doing this fake smile for a few weeks now.  It really is cute.  I think even Dilbert smiled or this picture.

 The Sunday before Halloween, we carved pumpkins at Grandpa and Grammy's house.  Uncle Joe, Aunt Heather and Hudson were there too.  Lucy and Hudson hammed it up for us with their pumpkins.

 Hudson was very interested in what Lucy did with the covers.

 Here we are on Halloween.  Lucy HATED her costume.  To this day when we ask her what she was she says "Elfant... Off"

 There were a lot of tears until we used bribery techniques.  "If you put the costume on, you get candy!"

 Here we are at my Grandpa and Grandma Zoet's house.  She finally let us put the head up when she got a smartie roll.

From there, we went to Grandpa and Grammy's house.  She put the head on again for this to get the candy.

 This is what she looked like. 

 We told her she could take her costume off after Joe and Heather came.  As soon as they walked in the door, Lucy was unzipping.  We got it back on her and Lucy went completely limp.  Here is Hudson looking darling as a pumpkin and Lucy being held up by me because she was limp.

 I finally laid her on Hudson's lap.  Lucy thought it was funny and Hudson didn't quite know what to think of it.

 Then Lucy sat by him or a few shots without the hood on.  Hudson thought it was very funny!

The costume was so huge that she will probably fit in it next year.  We'll see how that goes!

Remodel Progress

Here are some new pictures.  This first one is what I walked in to on Monday aternoon.  I almost immediately started crying because these are NOT the drawer fronts that I wanted.  GRRR!!!  I called my mom bawling, regrouped and then called the cabinet woman.  We should be getting new drawer fronts soon.

 Here is our island base.  I love it!  The cupboard doors on the perimeter look awesome too... just not the drawers.

 Here is the island as of Friday!  The granite is in and the sink and faucet.  I LOVE it!!!

 This shows the island granit, the backsplash tile which we will purchase on Monday and the paint color which will go on the walls Monday/Tuesday.  (The second lightest brown is the paint)

 Here is one wall as of now.  I LOVE the doors!  We pretty much picked out hardware, but will make a final decision next week.  My prep sink is HUGE!!!  I love it! 

 This is the wall with the stove and fridge.  Aren't these doors sweet!?  I love them!

 Here is our fireplace wall.  They will hopefully brick it in and install cabinets here this week.  It's going to be SWEET!

They are making visible progress now and it looks sweet!  I'm so excited.  I will post more next week when things are more complete.  :)

Our "Broken" House

This is what our kitchen looked like on Monday night. 

 And our living room...

That night Lucy stayed overnight at my parents.  When my mom asked her what was going on at our house, she said in a forlorn tone, "It's bwoken." 

On the way home from Grammy's yesterday, Lucy kept talking about our "bwoken house."  I don't think she wanted to go back there.

As of last night, they made some progress in "fixing" it!  We now have a fireplace and some can lights in.  :)  Hopefully tonight they will get drywall up because it is FREEZING in parts of the house!  Thankfully we have this going now and not when it's snowing. 

Lucy loves heels!

Lucy loves to wear high heels.  She is getting good at walking in them too.  A few days ago she raided her Aunt Jenna's closet (Jenna's at college) and picked white 4-5 inch heels, 2 beaded necklaces, and a big ring to wear.  Unfortunately, my mom and I were laughing too hard to get a picture.  Here she is wearing my heels at home.

She took one really graceful fall.  Instead of catching her, I caught the fall on film (well... actually digitally).  Isn't she graceful?

I will post pictures of Lucy's Halloween costume soon.  She is still talking about it!  (Even though she HATED the costume!)

Lucy's friends... and their moms

(Sorry for no pictures.  This computer doesn't want to upload them tonight.)

Lucy is getting really good with peoples' names.  Last week I asked her who her friends are and she listed of names for a long time like this, "Emy, Yogan, Heidi, Beya, Yuke, Halle, Amalia, Rhonda..."  and on and on.  I don't know all of the kids in her room at Lighthouse Early Learning Academy, so some of the names she might be saying but sound like goblety gook to me. 

Lucy is also really good at recognizing kids and their moms.  Last week I was strapping Lucy into the car at Lighthouse when another woman parked and got out of her car.  Right away Lucy started yelling "Amalia!  Amalia!"  As I walked to my side of the car, I said to Amalia's mom (sorry, I don't know her name!) "Lucy was just saying 'Hi' to you!"  She said "Isn't it amazing how they know everyone and their parents?"  I completely agree with her! 

The kids get so excited when someone's mom comes.  There are days when I get there and all the kids jump up and down and cheer for Lucy.  So CUTE!

Yesterday, we were walking out of the gym, and we met a woman with 3 kids and Lucy yelled "Emy!"  The woman said, "Is that Lucy?"  That's when I realized she was holding Emily who is also in her room at daycare.  She's SO observant!

Okay... one more...  Lucy is getting good at her name and age (since she will be 2 next week).  She calls herself "Yucy" and she is almost "Two!"  One week from today and she will be two!