2nd Annual Cousin’s Cookie Exchange

Y’all know I have the biggest, cutest bunch of cousins, right? This is the second year we have had a cookie and ornament exchange at my cousin Tanna’s in Dublin. Last year I sent my cookies and ornament by mail as we were in Florida! I’m so happy to be back home where I can participate in everything!

Veering from the traditional, the girls and I made Hot Cocoa Cones!

Frosty’s Hot Cocoa Mix

• 6 1/2 cups powdered milk
• 1 (5 ounce) package non-instant chocolate pudding mix
• 1 cup powdered chocolate drink mix or hot chocolate mix
• 1/2 cup vanilla powdered non-dairy creamer
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Combine all ingredients. To make Hot Cocoa: Dissolve 1/3 cup cocoa mix in 1 cup boiling water. Yum!

 

Marcella helped by taking each cone and stacking it in a neat and methodical pile! :-)

And on to Dublin!!!

Enjoying all the yummy treats…..

Some of the cutest cousins ever….Kelly and Judy!

Cutest Poppi ever!

Yummmmmm

Hey! it’s me! Cousin Judy was so sweet to take pictures for me. She is our family photo historian. She always sees to it that we get great pictures of our events. Thanks Judy!

Our little cones…..wish I had made more! They are fun to give out.

Cousin Shelly and her daughter Elizabeth….very cutely matching, I might add!

Sweet cousins Teresa & Pammy….

Cousins Tasha. Tanna, Alicia and my sweetest Aunt Dodie!

Another wonderful photo orchestrated from our Historian!

I didn’t get pictures of everyone…there are so many of us! Below is the “man room” where the dudes hang out and watch the Cowboys lose. The children invaded! LOL.

We had such a wonderful time ~ I love my family!

Is it Spaghetti?!?!?!

I thought I would share these fun cupcakes Madeline and I made for our Leader/Daughter Pajama Bunko that we attended….

I got the recipe from this book…..HELLO CUPCAKE!  Click for the link. It is a super cute book with simple recipes, well…most of them anyway. The spaghetti cupcakes were soooo easy! The “meatballs” are Rocher(?) hazelnut chocolates! The “sauce” is low-sugar strawberry jam (it has the best color) and the “parmesan cheese” is grated white chocolate. So cute and fun to make. The girls  loved them! :-)

Getting ready for Christmas at our home…..

Al and the girls put up lights before we left town for Thanksgiving this year. He sure works the girls hard…can you imagine? :-)

Yes, that is my baby up there!!!!

Last Sunday we shopped for our annual tree. I about our love of fresh trees last year, so I won’t repeat myself. :-) Gotta have a real one!!!!

 

“We have found the one, Daddy!!!” A Frasier Fir, as always. It is a Wilson tradition!

Next year, Marcella will have a turn putting up the star….

Madeline really helped put up the ornaments this year and I think she did a great job!

 

All lit up! Al put all the lights on a remote system this year. With one little remote we can turn on our tree, my set of three smaller trees in the foyer and the mantel garland lights. Pretty! I keep them on all day! It makes our home so cheery. I am so happy to be starting another glorious Advent season. This is our favorite time of year!

A little peek as to what you see when you walk in the door. Would you like some hot cocoa?. I just made a batch on the stove….

Wishing you a joyous Advent season!

Isabella’s first lesson

Sorry folks, too cute not to share! :-)

Beavers Bend, OK!

We just got back from a wonderful vacation in beautiful Beavers Bend over Thanksgiving! It was gorgeous. Truly, it must be incredible when there are leaves on the trees. We are definitely going back…..and soon! We even brought the pups with us and I have never seen them so happy running around crazy like! :-)

 

Many, many leaf piles were build and jumped in!

Little girls learned how to fish for the very first time…

A shiny pink Barbie fishing pole was purchased….4 fish caught! I had gone back to the cabin, so no pictures…sniff sniff.

My folks joined us, as well as Al’s sisters and the girls’ cousins.

We had the cutest, coziest cabin. We had a fire inside and outside almost constantly!

Al fried up a juicy turkey!

Beautiful, isn’t it?

I want to live in the exact spot I took this picture!

Little girls trying smores for the first time!

A wonderful time!!! We have so very, very much to be thankful for!

Miss Madeline turns 6!

We spent Madeline’s 6th birthday in little girl heaven~American Girl Place! For her gift from us, she picked out her first American Girl doll. She has been planning and deciding on this decision the whole year! She chose the Just Like Me doll that looks, well, just like her!

“That’s HER daddy!!!!”

 

biggest smile ever….

soooo happy!!!

Madeline showing Marcella Bitty World….(this was Marcella’s first visit). Madeline had been to AG in NY when we lived in PA. She is a long time AG patron!

I had to include this pic to show you how long Marcella’s hair has grown. It is such a beautiful blond ~ and growing right into little ringlets like big sister!

Her party was next ~ upstairs in the Bistro!

 

All the dolls attended with the party guests….

It was an amazingly sweet, girly, memorable party for Madeline….

Happy Birthday precious daughter!!!!

We couldn’t be more proud of the lovely young lady you have become!

Fall Festival at church and Trick or Treating

Oh, what a fun October we had! Madeline dressed up as Velma from Scooby Doo. There was never any question as to who she would be this year. We thought it would be cute to have a little Scooby, too!

 

Cute stuff, huh? :-) If I do say so myself.

Madeline with her cop buddy, Jake.

Marcella loved the trunk or treating. This was the first year that she has really understood what all the fuss was about~ Candy! Candy! Candy!

First bite of candy….pure bliss on this child’s face!

A week later it was the real deal….Halloween night! The girls tried to wait for their cousins to get here, but just look at them! They caught a glimpse of their friends down the street and they just had to go!

I love our neighborhood. It has tons of kids. We had a blast!

Our little house…all decorated up!

 

The haul. Way, way too much candy. Madeline’s school is collecting candy surplus to send overseas and for that we are grateful!

I hope y’all had a wonderful, memory-making Halloween, too!!

Pumpkin Patch

 

Our church hosts an annual pumpkin patch and we volunteered to help out one Saturday last month. We had such fun! The girls helped, too…..

 

Getting lost in the hay maze…

Posing for Mama….

being deliciously cute…

Picking the biggest pumpkin in the patch….and hauling it herself, too!

Hugging on Poppi…..

and a hayride with Nana. Good times!

They had a great time and so did we! We love our church!

Autumn canning

This past weekend I had my Mother in Law and Sister in Law, Yvonne over for a mass canning session. Carmen had a ton of apples straight from an apple farm in Ohio. I haven’t seen apples this pretty since we went to the Apple Festival in Pennsylvania. The three of us worked all afternoon and it was worth it. We now have row after row of applesauce, apple butter and apple jelly! Oh, I wish you could taste some! It truly is wonderful ~ like nothing you can get in a store. We will be enjoying it all winter (if it lasts that long!).

 

I didn’t get many pictures because I was covered in sticky apple juice! I didn’t get one of Yvonne, so, girl, if yours turned out forward it on and I’ll add it! :-)

Thanks for the old-fashioned memories, ladies!!!

Jack-O-Lantern!

We had our annual Wilson pumpkin carving last weekend! Madeline picked out the biggest pumpkin in the patch, I think! I took a bunch of pictures to share, but when I saw these little clips I knew that they caught the moment far better than a photo. Each is less than a minute or so. Thank goodness we can record little bits of our lives this way. Some day we will look back and love to watch these. Hope you are all well! Lots of fun posts to come!

*remember to pause the music on the lower right column so you can hear! :-)

October is in full swing!

Wow…a busy weekend coming up for the Wilson’s! We are volunteering tomorrow morning at our church’s pumpkin patch. The whole family! :-) Al is taking Madeline to the Walking with Dinosaurs show at the American Airlines center in the afternoon. Meanwhile, my sis-in-law, mother-in-law, Marcella and I  are going to be making and canning  yummy homemade applesauce! I think we have a whole bushel of apples! Woohoo!! I haven’t made any since we were in PA.  Sunday night is a fall festival and trunk or treating at church. Busy, busy….but that is just this time of year, I guess! The weather is delightful…chilly and autumn-y! :-)

Have a great weekend y’all! I love this poem and thought you might, too! We have some trees changing colors and Madeline and I are enjoying picking up different colors of leaves on our walks home from school.

 

October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came -
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band.

~George Cooper, "October's Party"

More yummy pie!

All this beautiful fall weather has just been getting me in the kitchen! I made my apple pie for a family gathering this past weekend and I think I should make it more often! It is a labor of love but so very worth it!

I have tried a lot of pie crusts, but this is the absolute best. ever. really. Don’t make this pie with a store bought crust…fine for pumpkin, but please not apple!   :-) Just kidding.

FLAKY PIE CRUST

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup shortening, very well chilled

3 tablespoons ice water

DIRECTIONS

1. Whisk the flour and salt together in a medium size bowl. With a pastry blender, cut in the cold shortening until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Drizzle 2 to 3 tablespoons ice water over flour. Toss mixture with a fork to moisten, adding more water a few drops at a time until the dough comes together.
2. Gently gather dough particles together into a ball. Wrap in plastic wrap, and chill for at least 30 minutes before rolling.
3. Roll out dough, and put in a pie plate. Fill with desired filling and bake. If you like, google directions for making a lattice top crust. You will need to double this recipe, regardless, for this pie.

My Apple Pie

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp. each : cinnamon & nutmeg or more to your liking
• 8 Granny Smith apples or combo of other pie-worthy apples. I used Braeburn and Granny.
• egg for egg wash

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F .  Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in flour to form a paste. Add water, white sugar and brown sugar, and bring to a boil. Reduce temperature and let simmer.
2. Place the bottom crust in your pan. Lightly brush with egg white. This keeps the bottom crust from getting soggy. Fill with apples, mounded slightly.  Gently pour the sugar and butter liquid over the apples.Cover with a lattice work of crust. Brush top of pie with an egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Bake 60 minutes in the preheated oven, or until apples are soft. Insert a knife in the pie to make sure it easily cuts through the apples, but make sure they are not too mushy. :-)

I hope you will try it and love it, too. Email me if you have questions!

Daisy girl Scouts!

Our Daisy Girl Scout year has officially begun! Prior to our first meeting, Madeline and I attended a SWAPS get together! A SWAP is a little handmade craft/object/token that the girls make up and well, swap with other troops! The girls pin them on their hats or carry them in a little tote. Cute stuff, y’all!

Remember Madeline’s babyhood friend, Kaylei Jo? Her troop is in our service unit so we will be able to attend a lot of activities together!

Madeline collected many swaps. The one she made and gave out is the daisy on the very top of her hat. She hot glued (with my help) a pom-pom onto a faux flower and attached a pin on the back.

We had our first meeting last week! I made this information board for our troop. It has lots of good info on it! We will be meeting at our church. I am so happy that they are so very generous!

Madeline was beside-herself-excited. She made name tags  and set up a craft table by herself to keep the girls busy while I talked to their parents. I made them each a little notebook with their name on it and the G.S. Promise and Law decoupaged inside. During the meeting they each decorated a “treasure box” for all their Daisy treasures to come! They are a really sweet bunch of girls…so cute….and all so excited to be a Girl Scout! 6 little girls including Madeline. Perfect! :-) I didn’t take pics of the other girls to respect their privacy, but just imagine them sitting here looking all cute and sweet. :-)

I know we are going to have such a fun year!!!

Our little songbird...

Madeline sings in one of our church's children's choir! Hers is a special choir just for Kindergartners. This past Sunday all of the choirs sang together. It was so sweet! We were tickled a couple of weeks ago to find out that Madeline auditioned for a solo in our upcoming Christmas pageant! Her teacher said that no other Kindergartner would try out. Then from the back of the room (she tells) a little hand raised up and my sweet child went to the front of the choir room and and sang "Jesus loves Me" for her audition! In front of 50 K-5th graders! I was so proud when she told me that. I wish I could have seen it. Well, she was indeed chosen to sing a solo this year. She is the youngest one! Proud, proud, proud we are! :-) You'll have to come see it!

My Fresh Pumpkin Pie

This is my recipe for Pumpkin Pie. It is made completely from scratch and worth every minute of extra work. It doesn’t have to look perfect, either. Imperfection is telltale sign that it is homemade! Embrace it! Last year I cut out the little leaves for the edges and I thought it looked cute. You can use the pre-made roll out crust for that part if you like. Also, I usually process the pumpkins ahead of time and freeze the puree….saves time when you are making a bunch of dishes at once! This pie DOES NOT taste the same as a pie made with canned pumpkin. Give it a try….you can always go back to canned if you or your husband prefer. My hubby loves this pie! :-)

 

Ingredients:

1 sugar pumpkin

1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch single crust pie

2 eggs

1 cup packed light brown sugar

1 tablespoon flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice OR your own blend of spices that your family likes

1 (12 fluid ounce) can evaporated milk

Directions:

1. Cut pumpkin in half and remove seeds. Place cut side down on a cookie sheet lined with lightly oiled aluminum foil. Bake at 325 degrees F  for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the flesh is tender when poked with a fork. Cool until just warm. Scrape the pumpkin flesh from the peel. Either mash, or puree in small batches in a blender. Increase oven temperature to 450 degrees F

2. In a large bowl, slightly beat eggs. Add brown sugar, flour, salt, 2 cups of the pumpkin puree, pumpkin pie spice, and evaporated milk. Stir well after each addition.

3. Pour mixture into the unbaked pastry shell. Place a strip of aluminum foil around the edge of the crust to prevent over browning.

4. Bake 10 minutes at 450 degrees F , then reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F . Bake an additional 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Remove the strip of foil about 20 minutes before the pie is done so that the edge of the crust will be a light golden brown. Cool pie, and refrigerate overnight for best flavor.

Our newest Wilson family member!

The girls are proud owners of an adorable teddy bear hamster! His name is….Teddy! You know, Madeline really loves animals. She had been asking me for another pet….be it a bird, SNAKE, turtle….you name it, she wanted it! We decided to let her have a hamster. He is so sweet and soft. She is taking very good care of him! I don’t think it is a problem to have more than one pet. Our family has a lot of love to give and as long as they are taken care of I think it is great! :-)

I so wish I had a picture of Madeline and I taking Billy and Lilly on their leashes and Teddy in his exercise ball to Blessing of the Pets at church last Sunday. Our Pastor blessed each one our sweet pets and Madeline was so happy. Al got out of going because Marcella was napping right in the middle of time to go! So imagine me and Madeline taking all those pets! It was so fun, but no way I could get a picture! They even gave us certificates for each pet. I love our church!

Teddy lives in Madeline’s room and is very excited to play with her after she gets home from school….

I love my life! :-)

Ice dreams…..

Miss Madeline has taken her ice skating to new levels! We had contemplated getting her skates of her very own….and we were truly blessed! We made some inquiries and were thinking of having her fitted. A couple of weekends ago our neighborhood had their bi-annual yard sales. There  on a table at one of the sales was the most beautiful site (to Madeline and I )! A pair of Ridell skates in SIZE 12!!! The man said his daughter had only worn them a couple of times (therefore they had not molded to her feet…important!). We snatched them up for…drumroll, please…$5.00!!! Later at lessons, Madeline’s instructor told us that they were top of line Ridells and cost about $75. I think that God gives us these little things sometimes just to delight our hearts. :-) They even came with the sweet blade covers….

A pretty new skate dress that matches her gorgeous blue eyes…..

A new level of CONFIDENCE achieved!!!!

Favorite Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

I don’t know about your family, but mine loves pumpkin seeds! There are a lot of different “recipes” out there, in all kinds of flavors, but we like butter and salt the best! This is how I do them….very easy!!! Oh and popcorn salt works best. :-)

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups raw whole pumpkin seeds

2 teaspoons butter, melted

1 pinch salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

2. Toss seeds in a bowl with the melted butter and salt. Spread the seeds in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake for about 45 minutes or until golden brown; stir occasionally. watch those seeds carefully!!! Give them to your loved ones and watch them disappear!

The Simple Woman’s Daybook

 

 

For September 27, 2009

Outside my window... is a beautiful, sunny autumn day! Breezy and in the low 70’s. Glorious!

I am thinking... of how grateful I am to be so happily busy taking care of my husband, my little girls and my home. I love being a homemaker…it is such a blessing.

I am thankful ... for the health and wellbeing of my family.

From the kitchen... I bought about 10 lbs. of apples this week, 4 varieties….let the baking began! and the applesauce making, too.  A batch of my homemade spaghetti sauce will soon be simmering the afternoon away on the stove.

I am wearing... navy linen capris (last time this season, I bet) & and a pretty green shirt.

I am creating... a peaceful, loving, nurturing home for my cherished family. Nothing “crafty” today!

I am going ... nowhere else today! Just our walk to school at 3:00. I am going to lunch and shopping in downtown Grapevine with my cousin tomorrow!

I am reading... just finished In Praise of Stay at Home Moms by Laura Schlesinger. Wonderful! I have never listened to her or read her books…just happened upon the title in the library. Very encouraging!

I am hoping... the cooler weather comes back…soon!

I am praying ... for the 150 children absent from Madeline’s school today, presumably due to the flu.

I am hearing... light classical on direct t.v……quiet & tranquil naptime.

Around the house...Al and I planted 10 mums and some flowers yesterday. We also put out 7 bags of mulch. Hard Labor for me!! :-) but it does look lovely.

One of my favorite things... walking to and from school with my girls, being there for them, always….

A few plans for the week ahead... so, so much, but all good things…Ice skating, picture day, lunch out…happy things!!!

Here is picture thought I am sharing... and words, too! At school last week, Madeline had a children’s author visit their class. He talked about writing and getting published. Madeline came home and said she wanted to be a writer and I would need to send her books out to “the big places” to have them buy her books. Immmediately, she began her first book, complete with illustrations. She is now on her third in the series. So cute….I love how she is just soaking up everything little thing she is learning in school.  This is her first work: The Owl met the Bluebird. :-)

Have a blessed week, dear ones~

 

 

For other daybooks see, http://www.thesimplewomansdaybook.blogspot.com/

Pumpkin cookie dip

Pumpkin Cookie Dip

 

Little and big children love this! Serve with graham cracker “sticks” or ginger snaps. Super yummy! It does make bunch, so consider cutting  the recipe in half! :-)

 

Ingredients:

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese,

softened

2 (7 ounce) jars marshmallow cream1 (15 ounce) can solid pack pumpkin

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions: 
1. In a medium bowl, beat together cream cheese and marshmallow cream until smooth. Fold in pumpkin and cinnamon. Cover, and chill in the refrigerator until serving.