An Old friend is Back...

A couple weeks ago I signed up to make 3 dozen cookies for the Preschool graduation at our church.  I looked on Pinterest to find something really neat to make because I really didn't want to do plain old sugar cookies or even chocolate chip...I wanted something different.  I believe I found them.  I hadn't heard of these before or at least I don't remember hearing about these type of cookies before.  I decided to make Jello cookies.  Here is the blog that I got it from http://www.iheartnaptime.net/jello-cookies/  (I really like her blog name!).  To do these I needed to pull out an old friend...my Kitchen Aide mixer (that I haven't used in at least 2 1/2 years.

I think if I had an actual space for it on my counter I would leave it out, but the upper cabinets in my kitchen go to low to have it sit out on the counter.

As you can see below it worked!  I even remembered how to use it!  This is the first batch to go into the oven.  Had to finish the blue ones next.

The Green are Lime flavor, Orange are well...Orange flavor, the Red are Strawberry and the Blue ones are Berry Blue flavor.  The recipe states that it would make 2 dozen but thankfully I was able to get way more than that as you can see.

Here is the picture of the platter for the graduation.  I have leftover cookies.  I really hope that they taste ok!

No I haven't forgotten...

I haven't forgotten about the blog!  I really need to get the pictures off the camera before I can post some more and things have been pretty busy around here with day-to-day things.  I will try and get the pictures up on the computer during naptime today and hopefully get at least one new post up today...besides this one!

Mother's Day 2012

Today was a nice Mother's Day for me.  As my gift(s) Scott gave me a no diaper day (so I didn't have to change ANY diapers) and I requested to have a nap and be able to scrapbook.  I was able to nap with Xander for a couple of hours.  I did not get to scrapbook but that was my choice...I decided just to hang out at home and do nothing.  I did make our dinner of chicken salad which is always a favorite.

Today is also Xavier's 11 month birthday!  I can't believe that in a month he will be a year old!  I feel like I missed about 6 months of his life since my neck was injured and I couldn't do what I wanted to with him.  I am trying to soak it all in now.

Xander giving me kisses

My version of Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream

I have decided that I want to start making ice cream at home.  I already have the ice cream maker so why not? I decided that we would do chocolate ice cream first (after I found that vanilla beans are outrageous in price!), so I looked on allrecipes.com and found this recipe  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/very-chocolate-ice-cream/detail.aspx?event8=1&prop24=SR_Title&e11=chocolate%20ice%20cream&e8=Quick%20Search&event10=1&e7=Home%20Page

One chocolate ice cream I love is from Schwan's and has peanut butter and chocolate in it.  I figured I would do the same and see if it would taste like it.  

I made little peanut butter balls and froze them for about 24 hours.

Instead of using white milk in the recipe I put in chocolate milk that we had.  I made the recipe as it says to and at the end of the freezing cycle on the ice cream maker I added the peanut butter and a handful of chocolate chips.

Xander helped me make the ice cream.

Xavier as in on the action as well.

Scott and I taste tested it last night and it is SOOOO GOOD!  Scott did say that he thought it was a little rich but I didn't think so.  I will try and make smaller peanut butter balls next times though.

Lizard Hunting

This afternoon I heard the leaves under the open window rustle.  I looked and saw that the umm...resident lizard was out there.  Shortly after I saw it Xander woke up from his nap and I told him about the lizard.  He decided he needed to go hunting for the lizard so that is what he did for quite awhile!  Unfortunately, Xander wasn't able to actually catch that lizard, it was too quick for him.  Xander has caught lizards before and frogs too...it is one of his favorite things to do!

Going on a lizard hunt

Going to catch a big one

                                                     I'm not afraid!

Xavier wanted to help too!

Xander had it cornered here but couldn't get it...the lizard somehow got away without us noticing where.

After Scott got home we had dinner on the fire pit.  It was the first "real" cooking we have done on it since we (okay Scott) built the fire pit.  We have done hot dogs on it before though.

 Watching our dinner cook

 Eating our yummy dinner!

Bicycling to work

Good Morning All!  It is a nice and chilly morning here.  I have opened the two windows that can open and have screens on them.  We are a "frugal" family and just try to do our best.  One way that we are doing this is that Scott rides his bicycle to work most days.  That ends up being about 13 miles round trip.  The main reason that he does this is to save on gas money but there are a few perks like exercise, weight loss, and enjoying the beautiful scenery that God has given us.  It takes Scott about 30-40 minutes to get to work and closer to an hour to get home since it is mainly up hill on the way home.  Here are a couple pictures of Scott coming home one afternoon last week.

      

                  

Teething is a Bear!

Teething is NO FUN!
Now let's start back at the beginning...
Three and a half years ago when I was pregnant with Xander, I went through alot to make sure that the crib that we got was PERFECT!  No scratches or anything (for proof of that go in our attic for the 3 extra legs and an extra toddler rail).  Xander was a great teether, we never knew he was teething really till the tooth would come through.  Until he was almost 15 months old...he woke up and decided that he needed to chew on his rail.  That is the day that the crib turned into a daybed for him.
Now fast forward to Xavier.  I decided to go ahead and get a bumper type rail cover to protect the front rail of the crib from Xavier teething on it.  Here is a picture of that on the crib:

Pretty protected you would think right?  You would be right...the front rail IS protected...never in my wildest dreams did I think he could bite the side of the crib that is sort of like a sleigh style.  Here is a picture to prove me that it is possible!