Cookie season is here!

  Eric started filling up the rink yesterday afternoon.  Unfortunately there was a leak and a good portion of the water drained out (and we didn’t realize it until it was too late) so the process is still ongoing.  And now its snowing again, so it will have to wait until tomorrow. 

Hopefully I will have a picture of everyone out skating for you tomorrow!Except for Miss Avos who prefers to be inside where it’s warm.  That and she seems to have gotten a cold.   Oh – AND she can’t skate yet.    And Mux.  She probably won’t join in the skating party either.  Instead, she’ll take the opportunity to mess with the Christmas tree and try to eat ornaments.    Dylan and I made sugar cookies today!  I made a promise, and I had to follow through.  The remote for the camera had to come out again.  And it got covered in flour.  He knew just what to do!  Must be all the play dough work he does at school.   Seriously, I don’t think that the remote is EVER going to get old.  He LOVES that thing!  Posing!    Posing again!  Two posers!  And after I frosted the cookies, Dylan did the sprinkles.  His favorite.  I’m pretty sure he ate more than he put on.  I don’t know why.  They barely taste like anything!   And then he had to taste his work.    This frosting dried pretty fast and was very shiny.  You can find the recipe here, if you like.  I painted it on with a pastry brush and that seemed to work well.    Avery supervised the process a bit, but mostly took the opportunity to play by herself.  She has been playing with her pots and pans and making food for her babies.  Very busy little mama, she is.    Ok, seriously, she looks SO cute with her hair did!  Dang it Avery!  She pulled it out 1 second after I snapped this photo.   Poor baby.  Don’t know if her cheeks are red because of her cold or if she’s getting more teeth.    And here are the finished cookies!  All set for storing.  I’m not big on sugar cookies, so hopefully I can find some takers on these.  Lingy?  You want some cookies?   The sugar cookie recipe we used can be found here.  Oh and for your information, Mom, they did end up being more of a crunchy cookie, so we’ll be sure to save some for ya. (She doesn’t like soft cookies!  What the heck?!)  I’m guessing I must have baked them too long.  Grrrrrrr.

Well, the computer just took a 45 minute crap on me and I’m sick of sitting here.  Also, I have nothing more to say!  Soooooo see ya tomorrow!

World’s Longest Post

Ready for it?  I thought so.  I don’t know how I ended up with so much to write about today!  Then again, this post is also very picture heavy, so maybe I don’t have much to say?  Pictures speak louder than words, right?  Anyway, first thing's first – I’M FAMOUS!!  Physique 57 sent out their newsletter yesterday featuring me in their very first customer testimonial feature!  I posted about it awhile back and now it has finally been sent out to all of their newsletter subscribers.  Very exciting day for me, indeed.  AND to top it off – they are sending me the new DVD set as a thank you when it is released in the next few days (well, it BETTER BE in the next few days!  I’m jonzin’ for more P57!).  I’m SO excited to get them!  Here is a link to the email if you want to see the official post.   

Dylan’s first hockey practice of the year is/was tonight.  They are there right now, actually.  So Eric had him try his stuff on the other night to make sure it all fit right.  Personally, I think he just wanted me to take pictures of D in his gear.  No big deal – I wanted to do that anyway!

Slap shots in the house – not such a good thing anymore.  He is seriously going to break a window or a plasma tv one of these days.

And then there is this one who has to do whatever her brother is doing.  She keeps saying, “Hockey! Hockey! Hockey!”  

She totally had the right idea too!  She dropped the ball right in front of her and took aim with the stick.  

Dylan showing her how its done.

And it snowed a bunch yesterday!  Avery and I chose to stay where it was warm, so I took pictures thru the window.  Eric actually had to break out the snow blower for the first time this year!  Very exciting, I know.

She just can’t decide how she feels about the winter outdoor landscape.  On one hand, she wants to go out, but once she’s out there – she decides its too cold and her snow outfit is just not comfy.  I looked out the other day at them in the snow to see that she was laying flat on her back on the sled motionless.  She looked hilarious!  

Got the Christmas movies out!  What to watch first, what to watch first.  The clear choice here is Elmo’s Christmas Countdown.  Classic.    I need to start wrapping gifts, so I have to have my movie all picked out for that.  Will most likely go with Love Actually first.  Cuz it’s my fav.  It really is a shame I have no one to watch these gems with!  Eric refuses to watch anything he’s already seen.  He’s such a scrooge! 

  So this is a VERY exciting tidbit for you -  we got a remote for the camera today!  Woohoo!!  No more pressing the button on the camera and running for our places!  Here is the first official picture – yay! It works!

And then Dylan made me hand it over to him.  Knew that was going to happen.  Just wish I would have done my hair and put on make up today.  Dang it!  I should keep better track of my UPS tracking numbers!  I could have been READY!

Avery was very unsuspecting.  

I love her look of confusion.  “What is it that we are doing?” SO cute, he is!     Seriously – we are gonna have SO much fun with this thing.  I told Eric to be ready for family photo shoots!  OH yeah, baby!

And finally, tonight’s dinner.  It was fabulous.  It’s a Ropa Vieja that slow cooked all day long.  The meat was SO tender and delish by 5pm and the flavor was great.  I served it over this fabulous new product I found!  See below for a pic! 
I think this would be perfect for working folks as well!  You could throw it all together the night before in your crockpot insert thingy.  And then all you would have to do in the morning is put it in your crockpot and put it on low for the entire day.  Dinner is served when you get home!  Perfect!  Do it up!  

Brown Rice Couscous!?  Genius!  We LOVE couscous in this house, but since its not exactly as nutritionally sound as I want it to be – this totally made my day when I saw this!  I screwed up though and forgot the spice packet that was supposed to go in it.  Whoops!  It still tasted good though.

Ok, that is IT!  No more from me! Today, anyway…