Baking

Josh loves to help. LOVES it. If he sees me doing something, he immediately comes over and says "Help?" He practically insists on it. (And he's quite persistent!)


I got the craving for some chocolate chip cookies after seeing Lindsey's post on her new blog. I had most of the ingredients so after a quick trip to the store for some pudding, Josh and I set to work on baking the cookies.


He was in the tub when I started up the mixer and quickly washed so he could come help. He had a blast (and so did I!)

No Worries

I have a prayer request that I'm not allowed to disclose just yet. If you would, please pray with me that everything will go smoothly and the Lord will continue to pour down His blessings on these very special people.


Thanks, friends!


PS I will update you JUST AS SOON as I can!

PW Cooks

My very own copy of Pioneer Woman Cooks is sitting at my front door RIGHT. NOW.!!!!!! I can hardly wait to get home and look through it. 

Dinner for tonight is already partially made. But I may have enough ingredients to make something from her cook book another evening this week. Next week's grocery list will definitely include a recipe (or two!) of hers. :)

Play-doh

D and I decided that since Monster J is so loved by his grandparents and aunts and uncles that we wouldn't need to get him much for Christmas. I saw a Early Engineer's train set on sale for $10 the day after Thanksgiving at Toys R Us and luckily a friend of mine was crazy dedicated enough to stand in a line that wrapped around the building twice and she snagged one for me! I was thrilled!

That was really all we were going to get him from "Santa." Then, the week before Christmas, I saw a deal I just couldn't pass up on Amazon.com. It was a backpack with 4 containers of play-doh, scissors, a keychain (which we haven't told the Monster can be opened to hold play-doh) and "cookie" cutters for the entire alphabet and numbers 0-9.

All the gifts Santa brought!

I wasn't sure how he would react to the texture of it. He's a little OCD about his hands being clean and sticky-free (he gets that from me....I can't stand to be sticky!) but he seems to love it! He had played with some at his Sunday school class at Poppa & Grammy's church and seemed to know what it was as soon as he saw it Christmas morning. Grandma Hand cleared off her dining room table and we played Play-Doh for a long while. He even managed to figure out how to work the scissors! Yes, at 19 months old, my kid can cut with scissors!

Play-Doh!

Using the knife that came with his Play-Doh.

We thought it might just be a Play-Doh thing because you don't really have to cut and push forward like when you cut paper but I gave him a pair of scissors at TheLoft this week and he cut paper with it! Then I was worried that he'd cut himself (or me!) and I made him put them up.

Aren't those scissors neat?!

When we play with the Play-Doh he likes to make "nakes" (snakes) and "balls". We roll the balls and he smashes them.  We roll out the snakes and he cuts them with the scissors. The "blades" of the scissors twist around so that they cut cleanly, like regular scissors, or they cut in a wavy pattern. He hasn't figured out how to turn the blades around yet, but he'll use them either way.

Christmas

We headed over to Great-Grandpa & Great-Grandma Hand's on Dec 24th to spend Christmas with everyone. We had a good and lazy day Christmas Eve. We went to Draper Christian Church to have the lunch they were serving to anyone who wanted to come by. Monster J wasn't interested in eating. He just wanted to play ball in the gym!

Cereal for breakfast!

Monster J loves "oo-e-o's"

The quality control team for Grandma's chocolate pie!

We went to bed Christmas Eve and J did great going to bed, as usual. He had warmed up to Grandpa and Grandma by now and was giving out hugs and kisses and playing around with Grandpa. :) 

Rock-rocking Great-grandma's bears

Watching Great-grandpa wind the grandfather clock.

We got up LATE Christmas Morning and Josh played with the gifts Santa had brought. He got a Early Engineer's Thomas the Train set, a backpack filled with Play-Doh and accessories, a new jacket from Grandma and in his stocking was a harmonica (fun!), a toy worm (he calls it a snake), a new toothbrush and kid-safe toothpaste, bath wash and a train to go with his train set from Dude and Kate. He had the hang of the harmonica after showing him how to blow into it only a few times. That kid is smart! He wasn't crazy about the worm. It kinda gave him the willies! But by the end of the afternoon he was "getting" everyone with it. :) He played with the Play-Doh and train set until Poppa & Grammy got there.

Still sleepy!

The harmonica must be returned to it's original packaging.

Playing his first song on the harmonica!

Poppa and Grammy came in with the hook-up! They got him books, a toothbrush (it's tradition!), big boy undies!, another train set to accompany the one we got him and a zebra riding toy. It's a really neat toy. It goes from a push-walker to a rider to a scooter! He has been practicing and can push himself on the scooter already. It's insane!

He couldn't figure out what it was from where he stood so he leaned over it to see.

More trains!

Helping put his new ride together!

This is awesome!

Matt and Mae Mae came shortly after and Uncle Tom came for lunch. It was delicious and we all ate too much (as usual). 

This is the only photo I got of the kitchen action.

Just a normal night in the Hand household!

Getting some help with his scooter.

Well there ya' go....

I finally got fed up with having to log out of my gmail account and into my suddenlink account to post to my blog. So, I exported the old blog, created a new gmail associated blog and imported the old one! I'm so proud of my savvy self. ;) (It did take me an hour or so and I only had one Hall fit....that's improvement!)

Hopefully I'll be posting more often now that I don't have to jump through so many hoops to get here.

Christmas Cards

I am so excited about the offer Shutterfly is doing for the free Christmas Cards.

There are WAY too many options and I'm having a hard time narrowing it down to just one. I wonder if I could get two...hhmmm. :)

Here are my favorites:

I love the sherbet green color and the three different fonts. I also like the way our photos fit on this card.

This card is so playful. It's got the traditional red and green but is also fun and modern with the design. And the main photo we've chosen for this year's card looks great on it.

This card is adorable. And if I decide to put just Josh on the card I have the perfect photo picked out. I wish you could change the message on all of the cards. (Like 'holiday' to 'Christmas', etc)

This one is one of the first we picked out. I like all the colors and it only clashes with the photos in our photo a little. ;) But it looks good all together.

This is one of my favorites (I know...I keep saying that). I'm diggin' those polka dots and my two favorite photos from this year's Christmas photo session work perfectly on this card. It's a VERY strong contender.

I may have to pick from a hat....seriously. :)

I'm also considering the calendar they offer. I'm thinking I'd rather look at that at work than the vintage car calendar that's currently hanging. ;)

I'll be glad to have the Christmas card decision made. And I've been looking at Shutterfly's birthday cards since Josh will be 2 in less than 6 months!

If you have a blog and want to get 50 Christmas cards FREE!!! check out this link for the info.