Christmas Cookies

Cooking has not been a strong point for me. My mother, whom I love, did not spend a lot of time teaching me cooking skills. The longer I have been married, the more skills that I have picked up. I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on the kitchen at this point. One of my goals is for my children to feel confident in the kitchen when they leave our home. I would like for them to be able to prepare their own dinners with ease. Of course, that takes a lot of patience....and that would be another one of my issues :) But I am working on it and every once and a while I will muster up my strength and invite the girls to cook with me instead of just watching. This past Friday was one such day. We had some Christmas cookies to make, so I thought the girls would love to help. And they did! Of course, licking was one of the main jobs, but they did it well! Except for the batter being too mushy to use cookie cutters (I have learned what I did wrong) we did a pretty good job! Who cares what they look like when they taste yummy!

Licking the blender, no worries, it wasn't on :)

Makayla putting on sprinkles

Caroline putting on sprinkles

Before they went in the oven

My sweet helpers!

Blog Giveaway

Hey Friends! There is a blog that I just LOVE to read. It is the life of a former Amish woman. She is chronicling her life for her children to be able to have when they are grown. I just love the stories! As most of you know I have quite the obsession with Amish people, so this has been such a blessing to find (actually, she found me) Anyways, she is giving away some books from her childhood, so if you get a chance go check it out! http://ajoyfulchaos.blogspot.com/2010/12/giveaway-time-again.html

The First Snow

Our Lovely Home

I have been lying on the couch all evening iceing my bum. What does this have to do with the First Snow? Let me tell you. Today, December 4th it snowed in North Carolina. The girls and I enjoyed a nice girls day out. We went to a craft fair and had lunch with my mother. On our way home snow flurries began to fall. By the time I had the girls settled in to their nap (aka: playtime in the bedroom while I have time to myself minus the fifty times I am called to help kiss boo-boos, break up fights and potty breaks) the snow was picking up. After a while I went in to the girls room and opened their blinds so that they could see outside and watch the snow. Once the anticipation built, we all got on layers of clothes to go outside. That's when it happened! I was innocently bending over to tie Caroline's shoes when BAM! I squatted down right on to the corner of the coffee table. I think it took two whole minutes for me to catch my breath and stop what surely would have been a flood of tears. I push past it and we go play outside. 20 minutes of trying to get dressed, 5 minutes of playtime. My fault, I couldn't find their gloves. Oh well! Good reason to have some nice hot chocolate. Once I was back in the house and not so distracted by the fun of the snow I realized how much my bum was hurting. I got some ice and sat on the couch and shed a few tears. Luckily my husband is a nurse and I was able to text him to get some helpful healing tips until he got home. I hobbled through the rest of the evening and Josh surprised me with a Dr. Pepper and a movie. What a great Nurse!

Here are some pictures of our first snow this season:

Making Snowballs

Throwing them at the van

My Three Snow Angels

Makayla eating the snow off of the bushes

Caroline after licking a leave clean of snow

My Sweet Sydney, she is half the size of the snow suit, but it's all I had!

Thankful for Four

This Thanksgiving the adults took turns sharing what they were thankful for. My dad went before I did and said he was thankful for his 6 almost 7 grandchildren (my sister-in-law is due in January). My turn approached and I told dad that he was wrong, he was thankful for his 6 almost 8 grandchildren! We are so very blessed to be having another child! Baby Bradley #4 is due in July, shortly after Sydney's 1st birthday!

Here is Sydney showing her excitement about being a big sister!

Journey with Jesus

Last year our preachers did a year long sermon series titled Journey with Jesus. This title came to mind as I was thinking about how to blog our trip to New York in October.

Our trip had two main purposes: One: celebrate Grandma's 80th birthday, Two: The annual Hike. Although we did have a good time celebrating with Grandma (she is very proud of her age by the way), this post is going to focus mostly on the hiking aspect. We did A LOT of hiking on this trip. We went on three hikes actually. We hiked Taughannock Falls, Watkins Glen and then did our annual family hike. Each hike we were accompanied by family. Aunts, Uncles, cousins, you name it! As we got more comfortable with our extended family our girls would tend to roam, often joining groups of people far from us. This got me to thinking about Jesus when he was a boy. I always gave his parents a hard time for not keeping up with him on that infamous journey where he stopped at the temple to teach. How could they not know where he was?? Now I know... It was such a fun time walking with our family. We would spread out in to groups and chat and then mix into different groups along the way. We all got to spend a lot of good quality time together just relaxing and enjoying the view as we walked. It was such a nice feeling knowing that our girls were safe and with family and enjoying their time too. It was then that I starting understanding the situation with Jesus a little more. Of course, none of our girls took a side trip to share the Good News, but they did have a great time with family. It was so nice to Josh and the girls to finally meet my moms side of the family on their turf. We had a wonderful visit!

Taughannock Falls

It looked absolutely beautiful when we visited because it had just rained the day before and the fall was VERY full!

My Mom, Uncle Dannie and Aunt Debbie

The above three pictures were actually taken at the beginning of the hike. In the background is just a mini falls, but made for a great photo op!

Watkins Glen Hike

Annual Family Memory Hike

If you look closely in the girls hands is ice cream. My Aunt Sylvia hired an ice cream truck to meet us on our walk and hand out free ice cream!

She also hired a horse drawn carriage to carry my Grandma (the birthday girl) and Grandpa the rest of the way down the road.

My Grandma and Grandpa

Caroline and Me after making a "pit" stop in the field

Proof that Sydney did actually come on this trip with us!

All the 2nd and 3rd cousins

The Bradley Family, New York, October 2010