Christmas Cookies

One of our favorite things to do at Christmas is to decorate Christmas Cookies.  We start out very traditionally.

Eddie was in charge of making the colors.  We have no idea how or what he was thinking when he made this color.

 

After we do some traditional cookies we try to get a little creative.

Shaylin did one with her grade point average for the semester.  She was proud of her grades this semester.

SSHHH!! Don’t tell anyone we ate a few along the way:)

It was a delicious morning!!!

Thanksgiving Dinner

It was fun to have the whole gang home for Thanksgiving.  Part of my goal for the weekend was to bond through cooking. 

Shaylin and I made our first homemade rolls. (OK, so it was a box of Lion House rolls but we did need to add the yeast)

We put the bread dough by the heater vent in the bathroom.  That is what Grandma Hartmann always used to do.  She said it was a nice warm place and made the dough rise faster.

Mike made the world’s best cornbread.  It was so good he had to make a batch everyday of his visit.  Shaylin even took a big piece back to BYUI with her. Josh made his first homemade apple pie with a little (OK a lot) of help from Eddie.  It even had lattice work.

(I had to add this…..just because I loved the view!!)

Perfection!!!

Soon the potatoes were mashed (my favorite part!!)

Tennyson shared in the joy of mashed potatoes.

And the feast began!!

We ate and ate and ate.  

Even the dogs got a special treat.

Trunk or Treat

Halloween was the highlight of the weekend.  We went to church to Trunk or Treat.  They really did a great job on the decorations.

The kids all designed their own costumes.  Josh won the scariest costume.

They did a great job decorating our trunk.

Yager Visit

My Mom and Dad came to visit for the week.  Of course, the first thing we had to do on the way home was stop by White Castle.  It took forever for their luggage to get off the plane.  It seemed even longer than the 45 minutes it was because they were ready those yummy, greasy, burgers.

On Friday we went to ASL.  I also took them on a tour of Naperville.  We ate at Egg Harbour Cafe.  It is still all of our visitors favorite place.  That night Nichelle and Mike came. 

On Saturday we went to the Shedd.  It was a lot of fun.  Even though I totally wore everyone out.  We also took a driving tour of Downtown Chicago.

Here we are waiting for the dolphin show. 

It was fun to see Tennyson talk to the fish.

Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

We took some pictures of the wonderful view.

Halloween Cupcakes and Pumpkins

Nichelle and Mike made these cute little Halloween cupcakes for the family. 

Each cupcake contained a treat (plain, Peanut butter or marshmallow) or a trick (a mini jelly bean) or a prank..toothpaste. 

Everyone carefully selected their cupcakes.

Then carefully took a bite.  Mike and Ashley got the toothpaste prank.  At least it was mint.

Then it was pumpkin time. I have the most wonderful son-in-law in the world.  We came home from an outing and he had all 7 pumpkins gutted.  We were then introduced to the new fangled pumpkin carvers.  They look like little saws and work much better than a knife.  These are the cool designs they came up with.