Cranberry Pecan Cookies

The first time I made these cookies, they were an instant favorite. I've been making them every year around Christmas time, ever since I found the recipe in a Quick Cooking magazine several years ago. It calls for a box of cranberry quick bread and a few other simple ingredients, so it is super simple to put the dough together and it makes a relatively small batch, which I prefer. The recipe is here.

By all visual standards my attempt at glazing the cookies was kind of pitiful, but they still taste great. I think I've got it figured out though. Next time I will try squeezing the glaze out of a small ziplock bag with the corner snipped off, instead of using a fork or spoon. Also, you have to wait until the cookies are cool, otherwise the glaze will just melt into the cookies.

Fall Pages

Here is a look at some of my latest scrapbooking pages.

This layout I copied from a Creating Keepsakes magazine, right down to the exact paper and everything! Probably not a color combination I would have come up with on my own, but I like how it turned out.

For this one I pulled out some of my older supplies. The patterned paper is from the DCWV 2007 Fall Stack and the green cardstock is some old stuff from Making Memories. I also used some of those $1 Studio G stamps for the title and the swirl on the journaling block.

The inspiration for this one came came from the 2009 Basic Grey calendar. The papers are from Basic Grey's Color Me Silly line, which I never would have thought would work for a Fall page, but it ends up looking kind of festive.

Do NOT Tell Me It's Snowing....Again!

For the last several weeks, we have had nothing but cloudy skies, I mean total cloud coverage. I cannot tell you the last time I've seen actual sunlight, or the sun at all, I guess I should say. It has been so gloomy and doomy, that it's a little depressing. Yesterday I went to open the blinds in the morning and bright light came through. My first thought was, "Oh my God, it's sunny!", and then I saw the snow. Not a great deal of it, I might add, but snow none the less. Most of it melted during the day yesterday, but after seeing the forecast on the news last night, I wasn't surprised to see a fresh coating this morning.

It's still coming down too, but you know how much I love grocery shopping in the snow, right?

Yesterday, Tyler twisted Rick's arm and convinced him to go to the Kid's Castle, even though I just took him two days ago. He just really wanted to go on a Saturday, so he could play on all the trampolines and the inflatable jumper. I didn't go, I stayed at home so I could have a minute to try and collect my sanity. Rick came home with a full camera, 68 pictures, but every single one was blurry....ummm, every single one. How does that happen? I think he must have been jumping on the trampoline as well, or maybe he was standing on the trampoline, while Tyler jumped.

We also hit the bowling alley again this week, and we all had much improved scores from last week. In fact it was my best score ever, maybe slightly inflated from the use of bumpers, but hey, I'll take it! For our first game, I bowled a 132, Tyler a 72, and Rick landed somewhere in the 80's or 90's. As we started our second game, we were the only ones in the building. But by the 3rd or 4th frame, we were joined by the giant group of high school kids that come and play on Friday afternoons. It's a huge group, taking up 10 lanes or so. We also had a younger guy, set up in the lane next to us. He was the best bowler I've ever seen in my life, but he also had the most unique method. At first, I was just trying to get over his physical appearance. He had green tipped hair, skinny jeans, a studded belt, and a rocker tee. I mean, he looked like a rock star, kind of like Pete Wentz. Then there was his bowling...he was playing by himself, so his games went really fast. He had three different balls that he was using and he wiped them down between each turn. Each time he threw the ball, it would veer towards the right gutter, but then come back towards the middle and hit the center pin. His movements seemed so big and exaggerated, his limbs stretching as far as they could go. After letting go of the ball, he a stance that looked like a ballet move or some pose you'd see on a fountain figure. I was amazed to say the least. He got strike after strike after strike, even getting upset over a spare. He scored a 225 on his first game. I don't remember what we scored on our second game, I was too busy picking my jaw up off the floor.

Going Stir Crazy Here

Being cooped up in the house with Tyler every day is really starting to drive me nuts! The weather outside is kind of miserable, so we just haven't been leaving the house all that much. I haven't been able to find many child related activities around town this month either. It seems like every five minutes I hear, "Mommy?" or, "Mommy?......Mommy!!".

My magic plan for today was to take him to the Kid's Castle, which is a large indoor playground. I don't take him there all that much because a) I'm too cheap (it costs $5.25-6.50 for an hour of play) and b) the place is starting to show it's age (duct tape everywhere) and c) ball pits kind of gross me out. I was hoping that there would be some other kids there that he could play with, so that I could sit back for an hour and get a little reading done. Well, I don't know how we manage to do it, but once again we arrived during a down time and he was the only one there for the first 45 minutes. So instead of reading my book, I had to jump right in there with him, going down the slides and all.

The Kid's Castle is located inside a gymnastics building, and on Saturdays they have inflatable jumpers and open gym on the gymnastics floor in addition to the castle playground for just an extra $1 per hour. So that's probably the best day to go in terms of value. And of course, Tyler is already making plans to go back this weekend...we'll see about that.

Cool Weather, Warm Cookies

I cannot wait for the weather to warm up a little bit around here....I feel like we're a bunch a bears hibernating. It's been so cold, that we've just been staying in the house most of the time. Rick was waiting for the weather to warm up to a delightful 40 degrees, so that he wouldn't get frostbite while taking down the Christmas lights outside our house. No such luck, so he had to go out this weekend and take them down, despite the uncomfortably cool temperatures.

Today was grocery shopping day, so as we drove across town to our destination, Tyler kept me in line with the rules of the road. As we passed a school zone Tyler said, "Uh Oh Mommy, you need to slow down to 20!", to which I replied "There's no school today", and maintained my 35 mph speed. Every time he sees a speed limit sign he lets me know if I need to speed up or slow down. He also reads me the street signs whenever he gets the chance. "Mommy, we are on East Yakima". I don't know if it is our new GPS system or all of our trips to and from California that has given Tyler such an interest in reading roadsigns. Heck, maybe he is just showing off his reading skills.

One good thing about the cooler weather, is that I don't mind turning on the oven and baking up a batch of cookies. Last night I made Coffee Cordials out of the December/January issue of Everyday with Rachael Ray. They have a strong coffee taste and smell thanks to the 2 tablespoons of instant espresso powder that goes into the dough. They are also supposed to have a chocolate covered espresso bean on the top of each cookie, but I already ate the beans that I had bought for this recipe, oops! The glaze called for 4 tsps of whiskey, which I thought was odd. It would probably taste a lot better with a Kahlua or other coffee liqueur.

Too Cold to Play Outside

It's been about 30 degrees outside the last couple of days with some low fog. All the trees are covered with little icicles, it looks cool. It looks like it snowed, but it didn't. I was really hoping the spurt of warm weather we had last week would last a little longer. Rick had bought a bag of hamburger buns at Costco and took Tyler to the park to feed the ducks. I wanted to squeeze in a few more trips to the park before it started snowing again, but it's just too cold.

So instead, we went bowling. The bowling alley here is really small...only 16 lanes, so it always seems kind of full. We had a great time though, even though none of us are particularly good at the game (even with bumpers). The last four lanes were taken up by what looked like a high school bowling class or maybe a league practice session. It was a little embarrassing at times playing so close to them, with my high score of 78.

Time Capsule

We took Tyler to Lowe's this morning for the Build and Grow Clinic. Today's project was a super simple time capsule that just took a few minutes to complete. Tyler doesn't really know what a time capsule is, so I'm sure he'll just fill it up with random stuff like his yo-yo, crayons, mini trains or things like that.

Here is his certificate and another badge to sew onto his apron. The next projects for February are a jewelry box and a race car, which sound like a lot of fun. I was telling Rick that we should think about putting up a shelf in Tyler's room to display some of his finished projects.

I took Tyler the other day to go see the Tale of Despereaux. It was a decent movie, I guess, but I don't really care too much for animated mouse movies. Tyler lost interest soon after he ran out of popcorn, but he did repeatedly thank me for buying my own bag this time. He's not that great with sharing and always thinks that I'm eating too much. Last time he shouted, "Mommy STOP! You're eating all the popcorn!". The next movie playing this month is Hotel for Dogs, but I think we will probably skip that one, seeing as how the last dog movie (Beverly Hills Chihuahua) didn't go over so well.

The last couple of days, we've had some unseasonably warm weather that melted almost all of our snow. We had not seen our street in weeks, it's been covered with several inches of snow and ice. I couldn't believe it, to wake up one morning and see actual pavement...with NO snow! All that melting snow has been causing some areas to flood, though. It was pretty bad in Ellensburg, where one of Rick's work sites is located...with evacuations and everything. The facility didn't receive too much damage, so that's a good thing. We'll just have to get out and enjoy the slightly warmer weather while we have the chance, because I don't think we are done with the winter snow quite yet.