Cookies

While shopping the other day, all of a sudden I looked in my basket and saw that I had almost everything to make cookies, except the chocolate chips. I casually looked down that isle, and what do you know, they are on sale. It's a sign to make cookies! This reminded me of a Gram story, that I thought I'd share with you all.

One day after school, I was hanging out at Gram's house just goofing around (watching TV, playing piano, etc etc). Gram came over and said "would you like to make some cookies?" I said "that sounds fun."
she gave me her recipe, and I went to work. I measured out everything, and mixed it all together. The first batch went into the oven. while they were cooking, Gram came in and "tasted" the cookie dough.
"This is great, did you do something different?"
"no," I said, "I followed your recipe".
then the timer went off and I took the first batch out of the oven. they looked a little funny. After letting them cool for a minute or two, we scooped them up to put them on the rack. looking at the bottom you could see that cookies were almost completely hollow! How in the world did this happened. I promised Gram I followed the recipe. Well, it turned out that I had added powdered sugar, thinking it was flour. Gram and I laughed over it for a bit, then threw out the dough and started over, using FLOUR this time. To this day, I always taste my flour just to be sure.

So, although my cookies are good, the memory they invoke of Gram is even sweeter.
I Love and Miss you GRAM!

I made a blanket with arms

So we started watching this old war show called "Combat". It's on some weird cable chanell that we hardly ever watch, but we found this show interesting, so we started recording it. Well, it had a lot of comericals for the "Snuggie" here's a picture:
It's basically a blanket with sleeves, so that you can stay bundled up and warm, and still do stuff like hold a book, or grab something to drink. Well, we thought it was a pretty good idea, but we weren't about to call up and order one (at 19.95 with 9.95 s/h), so instead we went to Joannes

and bought fleece, and I made one. The first prototype I made didn't work as well as I'd like (the sleeves were way too small) so I came up with a different idea for a pattern, and it worked very nicely. I've actually gone ahead and made one for Jason and even Westley (with some Tigger fleece). Lindsey took the proto-type, which fits her fine.

So I just thought I'd post about it. hope everyone is well.

Folk Dancing

So the school put up some money, and the kids (3rd 4th and 5th) got to spend a week learning folk and square dancing. They had a preformance today. Lindsey was so excited. We even went out and got her new shoes and tights, so she could wear her nice dress, and I braided her hair. Here's a video I shot of her danceing

Pile Of Books

So I was just commenting on My Sister-in-law's blog about this, but I'm just so excited I have to share it with everyone. So I started reading this Historical Fiction/Romance series last summer, and I really enjoyed them. The series isn't over yet, and so I surfed the web looking for when the next book would come out. I found the authors own Web Blog, and I check it every once in a while, to read about the progress, maybe catch a spoiler or two, and just plain read her opinion on things. Well, for the Holidays she did this contest for a "Pile of Books". All you had to do was post a comment on what was your best "Book of 2008". I thought I may as well give it a shot. I wrote about "The Sugar Queen" because I really loved it, and always come back to it, when I have nothing to read. (I guess it replaced Harry Potter, when my hopes were let down with the last book) Anyways, she picked someone else for the winner. Well the person she did pick never got back to her with an address. How is she supposed to send off a pile of books without an address. She gave the person a week to contact her, and then decided to pick another name. SHE PICKED ME! When I found out I was SOOOOOOO happy.
So the books arrived and here's the list of what they are:

Dreamer of the Day: A Novel by Mary Doria Russell
Homestead by Rosina Lippi (the author I will love forever now!)
A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell
If Angels Burn by Lynn Viehl
Tied to the Tracks by Rosina Lippi

PLUS she let me pick a book. A friend recommended
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

So many books, so little time. Right now, I'm finishing up Frankenstein, which is the required reading for my English class. Note to all, it's nothing like the movie (I think Joseph tried to warn me about that)

anyways, YAH for Books!

Our Rock Band

So this game goes so far as to let you design your own charchter, and dress it up. So Lindsey, Jason, Todd and I created out band. We're called "Out of Thin Air" and I think we're pretty awesome. It really helps to be musically inclined in this game.

Anyways, heres a picture of the people we created in the game.

Lindsey's the tiger, Jason is Mister Cool, Todd's the skeleton, and I'm the one all the way to the right (Normal). We had a lot of fun dressing up our people, as you can see.

Anyways, that's it for now.

Great Birthday

So yesterday was my Birthday. Jason and I were going to go see Phantom of the Opera in San Francisco. Well, we didn't go. Bad timing along with various aliments kept us from the show, but we had a good birthday anyways. Our family got an X-box for Christmas, and for our birthday Jason bought the "Rock Band" game set. It's a four player game, where one person is on a guitar, one's on a Bass, one plays drums, and one sings. You just need to match up the right colored button as the song goes on, and the singer needs to match pitch, and words. It's so much fun. Anyways, since we weren't going to the city we played rock Band for a while. I like singing, and playing the Bass. Lindsey likes the drums and Singing, and of course, Jason likes it all (he's good at it all too!). After playing for a while, My wonderful Brother-in-law (Todd) and my Mother-in-law watched the kids, while Jason and I went out to Mexican food. (which is my favorite). Todd made the kids quesedillas with my new quesedilla maker (Thanks Mom. BEST PRESENT EVER!) When we got back from dinner, we played a little more x-box, and then came home to sleep. It was a really great Birthday. Thanks to all of you who called, and even if you didn't, I know you thought of me!
Now lets start on those resolutions!
Happy New Year ALL!