Baking cookies on Halloween Day

This past Valentine's Day, I made sugar cookies with all the kids (when I was doing day-care). We cut the cookies into heart shapes and painted them with pink frosting. Well, for about the past 2 weeks, Elijah has been asking me daily to make hearts cookies. How he remembers this stuff, I'll never know, but I'm glad he does. Now I truly know that the things I do with him are creating memories for my little boy... what a reward for this mommy. So, today, I finally decided to suck it up and bake the cookies. This is a challenge for me, as I am not the type of mommy who loves help in the kitchen from little fingers.... I don't even love help from big fingers. I prefer to work on my own. I realize that this is a fault of mine, and I accept it. I let Elijah dump everything into the mixing bowl- he even threw a whole egg in there and I didn't freak! Well, okay, I freaked on the inside, but laughed on the outside. I guess God is working on my patience level on a daily basis... especially since I'm pregnant. My temper grows and patience shrinks when I'm carrying a child, for some reason. Hormones, I guess. Anyway, I didn't get pictures of the pre-baked cookies but here they are, fresh from the oven...

Pumpkins! Actually, it's an apple cookie cutter shape, but we made them pumpkins.

Here's the fun part... painting the cookies...

He is saying "dis is so much fun, Mommy."

I painted the faces on, because Elijah had decided to go take a bubble bath; random? Yes. Looks like I could use some cookie painting practice... But, hey, I actually had fun.

Elijah testing the cookies... "Mmmm... dese are so yummy"

Hiking @ Rock Bridge State Park

The State Park near our house is loaded full of trails. We love to go for hikes on nice days. It's beautiful. We even saw a huge doe this particular time, but I couldn't get the camera to get a good enough shot through the trees in the shade.

On our way to go "fiking"... that's what Elijah calls "hiking"

Gathering his nature treasures in his special zip-loc bag

"Indian's Toilet Paper" is what I told him it was last summer... he still remembers what it is and points it out to me... smart kid

Notice that his bag is empty? That's because he threw all of his treasures in the water behind him. What a fun "fike".

Our final summer picnic

I have been watching my nephew since last fall (today is my final day of that business, however) and let me tell you, 2 two year old boys are a lot to handle at times. This summer, we took lots of outings to the park right around noon. We played for a while, then had ourselves a picnic. My hope was always to burn the boys out enough for them to fall asleep in the van on the way home, but alas, it never did quite work out that way. Here are a few pictures from our last summer picnic... Nothing like some good 'ol PB&J

Serious Business

Hurry and eat so we can play some more!!



BUBBLE TIME!


Now, this is just sweet


He lost his shoe so Elijah was being a helper

However, why hand it to him when you can throw it... Here, Catch!