Baking with Abigail

Claire and Abigail put their baking skills to work this past Sunday. For breakfast they made monkey bread and managed to eat almost the entire thing (minus a few bites that Jeff and Sheila snuck!).

Then they decided they wanted to make some Christmas cookies so they went to work making the batter.

They had almost all the cookies made and frosted before 11am! It was a busy morning for these two bakers!

 

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

We had to get out the ingredients to make Grandpa Larry's traditional mint flavored sugar cookie cutouts. He always put flour on our noses when we made these cookies so we have carried on that tradition!

Claire did most of the work. Mom was only allowed to work the dough and roll it out part way!

Then we spent some time decorating the tree and going through all of our ornaments from previous vacations we have taken! Always fun to remember all of the amazing places we have been able to see!

Look Mom and Dad...The dogs can dance with me! Poor Emma.....

and poor Belle! At least Belle was wagging her tail during the dance!

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

We have so much to be thankful for...our family, health, safety, shelter, friends, jobs, the list can go on and on. We spent Thanksgiving are our family of 3. We made and ate way too much food. Jeff and Claire have a process they go through to make the best mashed potatoes!

I thought Jeff was crazy when he bought this potato peeler a few years ago. Turns out, it was a wonderful investment and it saves our hands from hurting with peeling!

Our little family spread...super delicious. Good thing, because we will be eating it for the next week!

This year we did a thankful pumpkin. Daily, beginning on November 1st, we would each write things we were thankful for. On Thanksgiving, we went around and explained what we wrote and why. It was pretty special and made us stop to appreciate all the blessings we have in our lives!

And we couldn't take pictures without Jeff and Claire acting silly, so had to include one!

 

Touring Sam Houston University!

Last week Shannon and Ellie came to visit and tour Sam Houston University. We had so much fun learning about the school and campus on Thursday. Ellie liked the campus so much, she wanted to show Jeff and Claire. We headed back to campus on Saturday and spent a few hours walking around. We are super excited to think about the possibility of having Ellie so close!

 

Camping weekend with the Fink family!

We spent the weekend at Jellystone Park in Waller, TX with the Fink family. Claire and Abby got a tent to themselves! It was pretty chilly overnight (down to 39) and we were all glad we brought stocking hats to wear sleeping. During the day with the sun shining, it got up to the low 70s and was perfect camping weather.

The girls spent lots of  time  on the giant jump pillow! 

Friday night we roasted hot dogs over the fire and also made smores.

We were very thankful we could have fires at night! They kept us warm until we had to crawl into our cold sleeping bags!

Jeff created a scavenger hunt for us all to do on Saturday. We divided into parents vs kids and had one hour to find everything. The requirement was we had to show a selfie with all the people on our team in the photo along with the object we had to find! This was a fantastic activity that took over 2 hours!

Saturday for lunch we had walking tacos which everyone had fun with!

We had to all get a round of mini golf in. Of course the girls wanted to go ahead of the parents and do their own game. It is so not cool to hang with the parents!

Blessed to have a great weekend with wonderful friends and ideal weather for camping! Many great memories were made!

 

Halloween 2021

Claire and her friend Averi wanted to be sumo wrestlers for Halloween. Their costumes were hilarious and were the talk of the neighborhood! 

The best part was watching them try to walk!

When the night was done, Claire came home with a bucket full of candy!

 

Baking again!

Back to baking again! Claire had to try out the new rolling pin she got from MamaLu and PapaDo, which they brought back from Michigan just for her! She decided to try out the sugar cookie recipe that was attached.

She had to do a few attempts before figuring out exactly how much to push down with the decorative rolling pin!

Then she attempted to do some Halloween cookie cut outs...

but when she began having too much trouble getting them to look like the cut out by the time they made it to the pan, she decided to just do circles instead!

The cookies were rather blah tasting and we both decided next time we will use Grandpa Larry's recipe and add the much needed mint extract! Super fun to have some design on the cookies though and I think with more practice, this rolling pin will be lots of fun! The baker just needs to perfect her skills!

 

Honoring Snuggle Bunny for "Dia De Los Muertos" in Spanish class

Claire worked super hard to come up with the best way to honor her Snuggle Bunny for Dia De Los Muertos. In her Spanish class, she had to come up with memory box to honor a lost loved one and it needed to contain items that the person loved and pictures to show who the person was. We did lots and lots of store hopping to find the perfect items for her box.

First we glued on the background....

 next, she arranged all of the items to be sure she knew how she wanted them displayed...

  then the gluing began!!!!

She was very particular about the items she had to have in the box and where she needed them placed!

I am super proud of the effort and care Claire took into making this a special representation of what she knows and remember about her super special Snuggle Bunny. The two of them had such a bond and I know Dad would be so proud of her right now!

The finished project, complete with a cross and purple cancer ribbon, a hammer and screwdriver because Grandpa was always building things; a tractor, some pigs, and a rooster because Grandpa loved farming and loved his animals; the camo background to honor him fighting for our freedoms in Vietnam. On one side of the box is the patch from the Charlie Company which he belonged to in Vietnam and on the other side is a picture of Grandpa from Vietnam. The best picture though is the one you can see, the one of Claire and her Snuggle bunny, snuggled up together and happy as can be. We sure do wish he was still here with us, but we are so thankful that Claire got to spend so much time with him and that she remembers so much about him still!

She wanted to outline it in lights. It looked really nice but the picture didn't turn out so well.

In honor of you Snuggle Bunny, aka Dad and Grandpa Larry...we love you and miss you every single day. As Claire said in her description below the box, you are always alive in our heart!