Saturday Morning Sweetness with the Girls

The girls are very into cooking in their kitchen lately…I mean, REALLY into it.  Mark and I are served no less than 5 meals a day, I’m sure.  Makenna’s specialty is cupcakes.  This makes me so happy, because everyone knows I love to bake.  🙂 

At the same time, Makenna is really into Food Network, and any cooking show we manage to catch in time for her to record on the dvr so she can watch it again.  It’s the cutest thing ever…both girls will just sit, mesmerized, and watch a whole show.  They learn a lot in the process too, and refer back to the shows often when we’re cooking or baking.  I’m especially excited that Kenna’s favorite seems to be Giada.  We all know I would love to be Giada, lol….

Anyway, this morning we got up quite early and I was feeling especially ambitious.  Back in my pre-children days, you might often find me in the kitchen on a Saturday morning whipping up these little bundles of deliciousness:

Cinnamon Biscuit Fans

But anything involving dough I generally stay away from now, both because it’s too time consuming, and because I always feel like I’m messing it up.  Well, this morning, since Makenna loooooves to do her own cooking shows now, I decided to document our endeavor.  I’ll post the recipe at the end for anyone who’s mouth is watering.  😉

This is JUST like watching them make cinnamon rolls at Cinnabon.  I have memories from when I was young, (possibly at Lakehurst? haha) of being entranced, sitting there watching them do the steps.  Maybe that’s why this recipe appeals to me.  First you start with a simple dough, and roll it out:

Spread with butter:

Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar:

Cut the dough into strips lengthwise:

And stack them up in a big pile:

Once they are stacked semi-evenly, cut into segments:

And transfer to a muffin tin:

After they have baked up into little fans, top with a glaze (if you’re me, LOTS of glaze):

And, oh….my…..heavenly, fattening, goodness:

These are best eaten while they’re still warm.  They get kind of hard and dry after a while, which can be solved of course, by a quick microwave and extra glaze.  😉  I always make double of the glaze in any recipe, and this one could have used even more!

Cinnamon Biscuit Fans

• 1/3 cup firm butter
• 2 cups flour
• 2 tbsp. sugar
• 3 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 3/4 cup milk
• 3 tbsp butter, softened
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp. cinnamon

Glaze: 1/2 cup powdered sugar and 2 1/2 tsp. milk

Heat oven to 425.  Grease muffin tins.  Cut 1/3 cup butter into flour, 2 tbsp sugar, baking powder and salt until mixture resembles fine crumbs.  Stir in enough milk so dough leaves sides of the bowl and forms a ball.  Turn dough on lightly floured surface and knead lightly 10 times.  Roll into rectangle.  Spread 3 tbsp. butter, then mix the 3 tbsp sugar and the cinnamon and sprinkle over rolled dough.  Cut lengthwise into 6 strips, stack, then cut into desired size portions.  Place cut sides up in muffin cups.  Bake 16 to 18 minutes.  Immediately remove from pan and top with glaze.  Serve warm.  Recipe makes 8 biscuits, but I stretched mine to 11.

Enjoy!  🙂

Time, just slow down, pleeeeease……

I know I’m like a broken record, but I can really say that I try to live in the moment as much as I can when it comes to appreciating this time in our lives.  I know that these days with the girls at this age are so short and will be gone in the blink of an eye.  Makenna and Kallie have both changed so much lately, seemingly overnight, that I feel like I’m in shock.  Mark hates how I always think with one eye to the future…like when I watch them sleep at night I’m fighting tears at the thought that, before we know it, they’re going to be teenagers and probably won’t even let us IN their rooms.   Or when I’m buckling over from trying to hold Kallie and sing to her before bed because she’s so big, and I just can’t bear the thought of not having a baby to cuddle every night.  Or when I’m a mess watching that commercial where the little girl is asking her dad for the car keys, but she’s really 16 and all grown up……I’m so emotional about those things!!

Anyway, it’s for that reason that I take pictures like this in the middle of the night, when I’m out fumbling around for a drink of water, and I catch this little scene out of the corner of my eye and I have to grab the camera because I don’t EVER want to forget how Kallie set up her doll family when she was two years old…

Notice the all-important toilet pulled up to the table, and her favorite dinner, of course: pizza. 

I know, Lord help me when my kids move out…..I’m gonna be a W-R-E-C-K!  😉

Teacups, Valentines, and More Sickness

The girls looooooove having tea parties, so when I found a paint-your-own-tea set at World Market, I knew it would be a hit.  One day when we were particularly bored I pulled it out and we had so much fun!

Creating:

Baking:

And of course, the waiting…..

Nice job Mom, no picture of the finished product…..such is life!

Valentine’s Day was much anticipated at our house, and we spent hours making cards for all the people we love. 

Then, naturally, Makenna spent the day in bed with a fever and awful sore throat and headache. 

Poor thing…Kallie was so sad without her the next few days.  She would go to Kenna’s bedside and say, “Otay Tenna?  Otay?”  It was so heartbreaking! 

Kallie with her card from Daddy:

What a little goof.  😉

January in one pic

I don’t even HAVE a January folder of pictures (I organize my pictures by month), so that should tell you a lot about our January.  I spent the month burning the candle at both ends (I’ve never so fully understood the meaning of that saying!) doing work for my Etsy shop, and last week I decided that after 92 orders, I need a break.  🙂  Hence the reason I am catching up on my blogging.  😉

We have spent most of January and February being sick and getting better and getting sick again.  Ugh, winter never changes!  So between a stomach bug, sinus infections, and more colds than I can remember, we were in our jammies a LOT. 

I remember spending hours playing with calculators as a kid.  I snapped this one morning as the girls were absorbed in their numbers.  And there you have our January!  Haha….

A Whole Lotta Catchin’ Up – Our Nov. & Dec.

Well….will we ever know what happened on the rest of our Disney trip?  I hope so, one day.  😉

I won’t start this post with my list of excuses, I’ll just get right down to it.

Makenna is most definitely 5 going on 15.  She is SO grown up.  I guess because she was our first, and the first of the grandkids down here, she is so much more comfortable around adults.  She just doesn’t GET the kids her age.  Of course she likes to play and everything, but she looks at these other kids who are running around screaming and going crazy and she’s like “What on earth…….?”  It makes for a really fun, cute, constantly entertaining little companion, but it’s also really hard to watch as a mom.  I want her to fit in, but I know she can’t completely change her personality to be like most kids we know.  I’m just waiting for the right friend to come along for her, I guess.

Before Thanksgiving, we had a fun visit with Miss Gail, one of  my mom’s BFFs…we love her!

Thanksgiving Day:

The kids table:

Kenna HATES sitting at the kids table, haha….she whines the entire time.

Our best attempt at a family pic:

Then in December we had the BEST visit with Katy and Levi.  We were so lucky that they got to come down for two whole weeks, and we tried to enjoy every single second.

Levi stayed pretty entertained by his cousins.  🙂

“Hey, I could totally fit that in my mouth…”

Kallie wanted a front-and-center seat for all of Levi’s diaper changes and baths, so nothing has changed their since they were together in August…

As part of our Christmas fun, we made an entire nativity set with my Cricut…it was too cute!

Christmas party at co-op…Kenna and Kinley:

Hearing the Christmas story:

As always, we tried to get some pics of the family.  My camera was messed up that night and I hardly got any good ones!

LOVE!

We got to have a Christmas with them while they were here, and Levi opened his first presents:

And we had lots of good old playtime together.  🙂

After they left and we got over our depression, it was Christmas Eve before we knew it!

Christmas morning:

We had a horrible experience on Christmas morning…halfway through the presents, Makenna was so excited to get the stockings down from the mantle, and she ended up pulling down a SUPER heavy stocking holder right on her face and nose.  It was SOOO scary b/c we really thought it was broken.  It swelled right up and took a chunk out of her nose.  Poor little babe…how awful to have that happen on  Christmas morning!  But she was a toughie, and after she calmed down we managed to salvage the rest of the morning.  She still has a scar on her nose, 2 months later!

Happy New Year!!

We spent New Years Eve at home and did s’mores by the fireplace.  The girls had a blast.  🙂

More playtime outside:

This picture captures their personalities so well:

I wish you could see their expressions in this one…they were outside playing and I found them whispering and laughing together like this.  Probably my all time favorite picture so far.  🙂

More to come!