Good morning ladies. Hope your having a great start to your morning. Mine is starting early. It is only 5 am today but I am up and ready to go. I am not sure for what yet, but at least I am off and running with coffee next to me.
We had a busy last couple of days. After doing all of those chocolates, I still had some baking to do. I don’t know if anyone else has issues with altitude baking, but I do. I have not made too many drop cookies since moving to the mountains. I normally do bar cookies, just out of them being easy. But since I am hosting a cookie exchange this week, I needed to bake some cookies. My choice of cookies are soft and chewy molasses cookies. I made multiple batches and then put them in the refrigerator overnight. I woke up eager to start my baking and did a couple of pans. They were flat. I turned down my temperature and added more flour, and that seemed to help. But this was after multiple wasting of pans. My chickens and dog sure enjoyed them! Aghhhh?!?!? I don’t like wasting and that to me was a lot of wasting. Oh well, live and learn. I was going to do chocolate chip cookies but decided to just make the bar kind. So much easier.
Then, the rain had cleared away from earlier in the week and it was turning into a beautiful day. I decided on taking my crew to the Dupont Forest. There are a couple of hiking trails that you can go see some huge waterfalls. I don’t have any pictures, because I didn’t take many. I know, complete fail. It was nice. We were able to just wear gloves and sweat shirts. Love that kind of weather. Then Lauren met us with her children that she nannies and we decided on going to the park to play for a little bit. We stayed for about an hour and then came home. I pulled out the pita bread, spaghetti sauce, alfredo sauce, pepperoni, ham, bacon bits, onions, pineapple, mushrooms, and cheeses. Everyone made their own personal pizzas for dinner.
We did baths because we had not done it the day before and cleaned up the house. My brother hung me some more Christmas lights outside. Evan did a bunch around the decks and then we wanted to do a giant cross on the front of the house. I remember driving through the mountains in the winter and thinking, “If I had a house way up, I would put some really neat Christmas lights for everyone to see while driving through them.” Now I get that chance:) Next year we can do some more, but I will first have to get some lights after Christmas on clearance—they are expensive. He did a great job, it looks really neat from the interstate.
Thursday was a get back into routine day. We had been doing school all week and just needed to finish up a couple of things so we did that. Cleaned the house and did laundry. Lauren took the girls to a quilting class that made holiday stockings. They had fun.
At our ladies meeting on Tuesday, Sybil made some cheesy sausage soup. It was so good. I knew that I needed to make it. For last nights dinner I made it easy and did chicken strips and fries for the children. I had the ingredients for the soup, so I made some and it was so yummy. I am glad that I will have some for lunch today.
I finished my night with the heat turned up! We have some kind of cold, Arctic blast coming through the mountains. I made some things up for my cookie exchange on Saturday and tucked the children into bed earlier. Today will be a day of running some errands after we get school and house work done.
I was asked for my cleaning schedule. Posting it here . I have gotten much simpler over the years. I can look back and see my Managing a large family series and all the detailed work I would have to do in planning out how to clean my home. I guess it was because I had so many little ones and they needed more guidance, or maybe I have gotten simpler over the years. Whatever the reason, this is what I use now. I put it on my refrigerator and it is one of the first things I look at each day. I know what I have to do for each day and it helps not to “stress” me out when I see fingerprints on the windows, because I know that I will get to them eventually during the week. I mean it helps so much more now that my children are older and can pick up their toys. It seemed that the house always had some sort of mess going on, but now I can remind the child who left out their shoes, ear buds, book, tablet, toys, etc and they get them. Except for those legos!?!! We ALWAYS find legos:) My boys love them!
I pray you have a good day today. Smile, even when you don’t feel like smiling. Gather up some ingredients and bake some cookies with your babies. I know, it means more mess, but do it this one time and make it part of your holiday traditions. I love you ladies and will talk to you next week!
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