Cookies

This is a long blog-lots of pictures. Bryan tries to make a point on his days off to do something "special" with the girls and on Tues. he decided to make cookies with them. They had a blast and it help reinforce some of what Jessie has been learning in math-kudo's to dad!

Bryan is explaining displacement-they where measuring butter. I had never thought of measuring butter this way-learn something new all of the time.

Here she goes...

The water is displaced now and we have 1/2 cup of butter.

Marisa is learning how to use the mixer. She was a bit worried at first.

But, the worries are gone and now......I think her mischievous side is showing up.

Well that didn't last to long......but she almost looks sad or really afraid here.

Aahh...time to start the taste testing......after all the emotional rollarcoaster needed a break.

No worries here.

Continuing on....time to measure the vanilla.

Beating the eggs...I'm not sure Marisa has regained all of her confidence yet. Jessie, on the other hand, seems pretty laid back(on the other hand- haha-lol)

Oh, how cute.....the little chefs.

Time to start adding the dry ingredients and the extra muscle to help stir.

Pour it in......slowly. Surprisingly the mess was very minimal when they were all done...I'm not sure they did it right???

Tastes much better this time!

And the best for last....the chips, chocolate and peanut butter. yum, yum!

This was one of my favorite past times when I was little.......still is... on the occasion that I make cookies;( happens very rarely-Bryan is ok with this; he says its better for his diet and I 'm not big on sweets so it works out great!)

Now, the final stirring and then time to make and bake the cookies, right? Thats what your supposed to do, isn't it? Well, I found out that after they were all done that the real reason for this was just for the cookie dough-raw. I convinced them that they needed to bake some of it; they made, I think, around 16 cookies and have been snacking on the dough since yesterday. I don't mind a little dough but I just feel weird to make it and then not bake it. There were no complaints from the girls though.

Annoyed

Since the weather has turned cold, Ruby, one of our 7 cats, has decided to set aside her differences with the other cats so that she can come in and enjoy the warmth. She has normaly been a loner or trouble maker. I have more than once gotten woke up in the middle of the night to a full out cat fight in my living room. Waking up to the sound of screaming cats is ......well, I wasn't sure my heart was going to recover. She definetly thinks that "cats rule and dogs drool".
As far as she is concerned, she has staff, not owners and for all of her hard work of catching mice, rats and gophers she of course deserves the best. This is of course is what she "thinks" but not what she gets and she reminds me of this when I go to put her outside-I get an earfull-good thing that I can't understand what she is saying. I do get a pretty good idea of her mood though, from her facial expressions--annoyed, irritated, annoyed, irritated, mad, annoyed...............


What do you want?

I'll try to ignore you.

Still ignoring you.......

You're getting really annoying now.

Just go away

I'm not impressed.

ugh..your pathetic

I'm not going to look at you.

Oh, fine..... how's this?

Will you please just leave now; you ruined my nap, by the way.

End of the Day

Today has certainly been a busy but good, productive day. The girls stayed the night at their Grandma Joy's so Bryan and I got to watch a movie together, spend some quality time together and then.....are you ready for this........are you sure........ok........I slept in! Its so exciting-a very rare event in my life. Now your probably wondering how late did I sleep in...........7:45. I'm sure to a lot of you that not really "sleeping in" but when your up between 6 and 6:30 most of the time, I think that quarter to eight is pretty good. After I got up, I went about the normal routine of bundle up in my bibs and warm coat(thank you Bryan), go out and feed the horses, goats, dogs and cats, dump ice out of the frozen buckets and refill them, put the bunny out into her new cage, etc.......Then I came in and Bryan had made a wonderful breakfast and we discussed the plans for day. I went out to Chapins' to work this morning then went and got the girls, came home, had lunch(it is now 1:30 and I'm starving), and then we rode the horses. Bryan was busy, busy with helping our friends, the Patterson's, put in laminate flooring. After dinner he went and helped some more friends, the Haveman's, put in some flooring too in their new addition. Now we are all home, have had dinner, bathes, cleaned up the house and its time to relax. The girls are in bed(not asleep yet-I can hear them), the fire is built, the dogs are all snoring(dreaming of chasing bunny's, big bones, truck ride with their ears flapping in the breeze and tongues hanging out....) , Bryan's in the bedroom watching a movie and I am.........blogging. I did manage to get some pics of the sunset this evening-thanks to Bryan calling me to let me know that the sky looked spectacular while he was on his way to town.

Its all in the clouds

This picture was taken after the other two...not sure why it is so much clearer--I think my camera has a mind of its own. Honestly though, these pictures don't do it justice-you just had to see it. The sunrises can be just as pretty too-I'll work on getting some pics of some sunrises too. Okay, I'm tired so I'm going to head to bed-night, night.

Up Close

I was really happy when the fog moved out Sat. I actually start feeling a bit claustrophobic when its as thick as it was. Let me out of here!! It makes the cold feel so much colder too.
However, there was some beautiful frost in the mornings when it was so foggy. Have you ever looked at it up close? Its really neat! I'll show you-click on the pictures for a bigger view.

Up close on tree branches

The fog was starting to leave-the blue sky is starting to make an appearance.

The girls' tree house with a very frosty tree around it.

Can you guess what is under all of that frost?

Does this help? Do you know what it is yet?

Juniper!!

Frosted highlights.

WOW!!

Fishing

On Tues. the girls and I went fishing. Jessie has had the "fishing bug" lately and the weather has not been cooperating with her desires-its been very frustrating for her so on Tues. the weather was nice and we did a field trip up to Willow Res./pond. The road wasn't to bad; still had some snow and ice on it so it was a bit bumpy. The sun was really warming things up and after we had been there for a couple of hours the snow and ice were really melting.
Unfortunately we didn't catch any fish but we had lots of fun hiking around and just being out of the house in the great outdoors-we loved it-it was a "breath of fresh air" in more than one way. I also got some great pictures.

The lower pond was almost all thawed out.

Down the hill from the lower pond

There was no breeze as you can tell from the water-perfectly calm

I just love this picture-I think I am going to print one to hang up on my wall.

The mighty fishers-Marisa was needing a snack by this time.

patiently waiting-that's hard at this age-i really wished they had caught something

Tired of waiting-its time to go exploring

the explorers have returned with quite the storey to tell

Playing around up by the reservoir.

The mighty mountian-woman!

The reservoir was completely frozen-we were so bummed

There were a couple places that people had been ice fishing but I'm not sure that the ice was still thick enough to be playing on it. We stayed off-don't worry. It was really neat to see-the girls threw rocks out onto it for a while.