quinta-feira, 13 de dezembro de 2007

Making cookies 2

Bits and Bites






Yesterday was Christmas cut-out cookies night. Patricia came over to help us out. Since Mommy´s recipe for cut-outs was kind of hard to make, I decided to try a new recipe from Good Housekeeping..should be good, right? Well, I guess it could´ve been! Lets see...if I hadn´t tried to half the recipe, but forgot to half the amount of cinnamon, oh, and a really neat ingredient that I guess is a new thing for cookies but I forgot to add...um...sugar! :-) So, in the end they didn´t look good and didn´t taste great either! But we had fun!

Party Plans

Last Sunday Emily woke up inspired to prepare a party for the family. Of course she started out with making a list (with a place to check each task as she completed it).




At 6pm we were ready for her party. She prepared a menu of what would be served: fruit on the stick, cheese sandwiches, pickles, butter and jelly sandwiched, carrot sticks, yogurt, juice, coke, etc. As each one of us ordered, she dutifully "wrote" it down in her notebook and off she went to get things ready.

It just melted my heart to see her proud face as she walked in with her tray filled with our orders.



In the meantime, Daddy and Eric were having a blast!


A Christmas Feeling


There is something so peaceful and refreshing about Christmastime. I get this every year. At first I´m going crazy cause there are so many things I want to get done! But then, once the decorations are up and a few traditional cookies are baked, I just want to chill. There is such a Christmasy feeling in sitting beside a lovely lit-up tree, listening to that same familiar cd playing in the background, eating a delicious butterball. It´s a cozy, homey, feels like family sort of feeling...and I love it!

quinta-feira, 6 de dezembro de 2007

Eric Thomas


Eric...always in motion! Literally! He is constantly on the lookout for something "cool" to color or draw, inventing devices with whatever pieces he finds, talking the whole time he´s around other people, making weird sounds to irritate his sister and being a real goofball.

He is a contrast between a sweet, gentle, thoughtful boy and a mischievous kid in search of someone to get. (He got a bad scrape on his knee for running away with his school friend´s flipflops.) But he is the first one to notice people´s needs (like the time when Patricia was sitting in the living room watching tv and he brought in a strawberry in a bowl for her).

This past week he had the flu and the house was sooo quiet without his chatter. It´s great to hear him out and about again!

Christmas Time!!!

We tried doing our Christmas decorated 3 days in a row, but someone was always feeling a little sick. This day it worked! Yeah!!! And I just added a video and that worked too!

Emily first planned cake

I´m discovering more and more things in which Emily is a lot like me. Some things are a surprise to see, others scare me (cause I know the road will get rough up ahead), but most of the time it´s just plain fun to see myself in her.


Lately she has been getting into planning...writing out maps of where we could go for a walk, keeping a picture journal of what she´s done during the day, or retelling stories through pictures. The other day she said she wanted to make a cake. I said sure, we could do that. She then excused herself for a few minutes while she planned what the cake was going to look like. Here is her plan:
After we baked the one-egg cake she decorated it:

And this is the final result!



Notice the 2 yellow flowers on the side and the green leafy thing in the middle (the same as her plan!)

This is one "like-Mommy" that I love...