It Came Upon a Midnight Clear {a night time walk}

First let me start out by saying that I am the. coolest. parent. ever. EVER. No, just cool for one night I guess. The promenade that runs through the middle of our neighborhood is lined with lit trees for the holidays and we took the girls out for a little stroll after dark to check it out.


We packed graham crackers, hot chocolate, and put on warm clothes (it was still in the 50s so the warm clothes were mostly for effect). I just kept thinking how neat I would have thought this little adventure was when I was a kid. And my mom did stuff like that with us a lot. At least the few times we did it were memorable enough that I thought it was a lot. Like "camping out" in the bed of my dad's truck to watch a meteor shower.


E ran in circles saying "wowa!" each time she saw the lights
Anyway, it made me realize that I wouldn't just have loved it if I was a kid, I was loving it right then. With my own kids and The Hubs.


G enjoying her hot chocolate (that we have to let cool for 10 minutes before she drinks it)
It was such a special little adventure that didn't cost anything or take elaborate planning. Just being together. Hope you can take a moment this year to take an midnight after dark walk and enjoy the company of your loved ones and some sparkly lights.

Happy Thanksgiving! {Turkey Hand Sugar Cookies - Sort of.}

Last year, we made turkey sugar cookies using the girls hands as templates. We put names on them and used them as placecards at the table. They were such a hit with the aunts, uncles, and grandparents!

This year, at the first mention of Thanksgiving, G said "Are we gonna make chicken cookies again?" How do you say no to that?!? So we traced our hands...

And here's where this little project gets tricky. Making the sugar cookies.

We opened some premade sugar cookie dough. Ha! You thought I was gonna share some secret, old family sugar cookie recipe. Really. Don't you know me better than that by now?

And rolled out the dough. Isn't my little helper a cutie?

The hand template really comes in "handy" here because G loses interest after the first couple. Plus, it would be impossible to get E to hold still for 5 cookies (The Hubs traced her hand for me). They look pretty good at this point but they'll puff up quite a bit so you want to spread the fingers out some if you can.

And here they are all baked and pretty.

We let them cool, then got to work decorating.

Last year we used cake icing and I added a teensy bit of milk to make it easier to manipulate. This year, I forgot that until we were almost finished so I made powdered sugar icing. Again, no recipe. Just a little powdered sugar, some milk, a splash of vanilla, and a little corn syrup to make the icing dry shiny. It worked fine and was easy for G to spread around. We didn't, however, make ANY turkeys. No cute little turkey feet or waddles. Boo. But it was still fun. I should have looked at the pic from last year before we started. Oh well. Live and learn.

A happy little accident occurred last year when I realized I had just made little handprints of my girls. I saved the hand templates and wrote "Thanksgiving 2010" on them. This year it was so much fun to get the smaller versions of the girls' hands out and compare. G's haven't changed as much, but my oh my, how my little E has grown! After we have a few more years behind us I might decorate a Thanksgiving tree with the hands or turn them into a garland.

So, here's to Thanksgiving baking, having fun with my baby girls, and new traditions and keepsakes.

Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. My heart is full of love this year as I realize how much God has blessed me and continues to each day!