Mother's Day

 I'm so thankful for the little one that made me a momma... she and her daddy made me feel so very loved.

We've been getting spoiled spending so much more time with my momma who has semi-retired!

And in other news, Evie's really come out of her shell!

Raindrops and Butterflies

We made it to Botanica just in time for a lot of rain this morning! 

Thankfully we were able to have our lunch inside and wait for things to clear a bit. 

The rain slowed enough that we ventured out towards the fountain to sniff all the lovely roses, and then it started to pick up again. 

Uncertain whether we'd get stranded in a downpour or not, we decided to go further out to the butterfly house. I thought there was more cover to it than just a mesh roofing, but there was a drier area at one end. 

We weren't expecting butterflies yet, and were surprised to find some. 

The cool temperatures and wet day seemed to make them inactive, 

hopefully they weren't freezing! 

The upside of this (our reward for braving the cold and wet), was that we got to hold the butterflies more than ever!

Sprinkle Explosion

I don't know if you are like me and get incredibly blown-up ideas about all the decorating, baking, activities and handmade gifts that you want to do for Christmas... but I have to remind myself to reign in my expectations to a more realistic scale sometimes.

For example, a good introduction to Christmas baking for a two-year-old would not be the entire Christmas cookie process, dough to decorating AND making gingerbread houses from scrap. Thus, I had to adjust my sites, choose one of those projects and keep it simple. The objective was not to overwhelm, but to introduce my daughter to the fun and creativity we can have in the kitchen. Yes, that sounds nice. So, with the help of my sweet momma, (who loves sugar cookies) I decided that making cut-out cookies would be the best, no construction required, and they sounded delicious. After pouring over many recipes, we found one that sounded especially good, with orange peel in it! Neither of us had made many cut-out cookies before, but we enjoyed this recipe and time together so much, that we have a new tradition!

Mom even said these were the best she had had, so... that's a pretty high recommendation.

Sugar Cookie Cutouts

(Recipe from Penzeys Spices Magazine- Janette Mittelstadt)

2 C. shortening (we substituted butter for 1/2 C. of the 2)

2 1/2 C. sugar

1 1/2 tsp. grated orange peel

1 1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract 

3 eggs

1/4 C. milk

6 C. flour

4 1/2 tsp. baking powder

3/4 tsp. salt

Vanilla Icing 

(I cannot wait for a new bottle of vanilla from Mexico from Bethany!)

4 C. powdered sugar

4 tsp. butter, melted (I used about 2-3 T.)

2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1/3 C. milk

Cream together the shortening, sugar, orange peel and vanilla. Add the eggs and beat until light and fluffy. Stir in the milk. In a separate bowl, sift together the dry ingredients. Gradually blend into the creamed mixture. Divide the dough into two or three balls, pat into inch-thick discs and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill for at least an hour.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface and cut into desired shapes. (We "floured" the surface with powdered sugar.) Bake on greased cookie sheets for 6-8 minutes. Cool on a wire rack before decorating. To make the icing, beat together the powdered sugar, butter and vanilla until smooth. Add enough milk to reach your desired spreading consistency. Color with food coloring as desired.

This recipe yielded approximately 5-7 dozen cookies! We broke the dough into three sections and had three separate cookie decorating parties.

I surprised my small group with a cookie-decorating night, aren't they cute?!

And we also got to decorate cookies with Bethany, Diego, Eliana and Cruz. Although Cruz did more sleeping than decorating... he's brand new. :)

Evie would have continued sprinkling her cookies for hours if I'd let her!

I'm not sure if Eliana ever got as far as to put frosting and sprinkles on her cookies, they just kept disappearing! :)

And these were Diego's cookies, which I was quite taken with, so colorful and oozy!

But, he was fast with the decorating so that he could move on to more exciting things.

They really were delicious, I wish they weren't all gone.

Happy Monday

These were just a few of the things that made my Monday a happy one...

All that and a bag full of library books and music...

hope your start to the week was a happy one too!

Serendipitous Roadtrip

Serendipity: the gift of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for

This trip with my momma, Lesa, was one that we "planned" in such a way that some might have said we didn't have a plan... our only parameters were:

• 
  
  exploring the beautiful corner where Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma meet
• 
  
  stopping whenever possible to take pictures
• 
  
  taking scenic routes and staying away from major highways
• 
  
  going to lots of little antique shops and flea markets
• 
  
  a stop at Ozark Christian College, (where mom went for her freshman year of college)
• 
  
  and visiting my brother-in-law Patrick at John Brown University

 My intentions behind visiting Ozark Christian College (which used to be called Ozark Bible College), were to become more familiar with that part of my momma's life, and it might be fun for her to be back on campus too. She was agreeable with this idea, but I started to wonder if she might just be humoring me...

So along the road to Joplin, Missouri I asked her to share about her college years and part of her telling recalled a favorite professor named Seth Wilson that taught a class on the book of John.

It was pretty cool to see that the college had since named their library after him.

There on the wall is a quote of his,

"Who we teach you to love is more important than what we teach you to know."

Neither of us knew how very much it would mean to return to this special place.

And this was the view from a new favorite antique store near Eureka Springs, Arkansas, along with a neat stone house next to it.

A beautiful garden awaiting a wedding, outside the historic Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs.

A visit to the "Candy Man" as the locals call him. YUM. His sons waited on us while their father wrapped taffy and their grandmother dipped chocolates, how sweet is that!

Then down to visit Patrick in Siloam Springs who showed us wonderful hospitality, we got to talk and pray together... we were blessed. 

We found it quite funny that his students like to decorate his car. The night before we arrived they made it look like a stegosaurus.

What a beautiful campus!

This lake was on our way back through Oklahoma.

I think I squealed when we saw this charming spot in Chetopa, Kansas. It had the best finds and we just so happened to be there on their first day of business! And I found the Beatles Sgt. Pepper album unopened in it's shrink-wrap for a buck. Yah.