Prairie Girl Wanna Be

He’s thirteen days late but Baby Samuel is finally here!  We are thrilled and so thankful.  Aren’t babies true gifts from God.  He could just send us two year olds to begin with or teenagers!  But He sends us babies and lets us watch them grow and change and be a part of these little peoples lives from day one. 

The best part is being the grandmother instead of the mother.  Now, I loved being a mother.  It’s all I ever wanted to do but this nana thing is just about the best thing there is in my opinion. 

Would you just look at the hands on this baby?  He weighed 10 pounds and was 21 1/2 inches long.  Guess we’ll have to take back those  0-3 month clothes:)

Since this is MY blog and since I am the nana the next pictures are of me with this sweet baby boy.

Well it worked!  I have had my first baking day and here’s a post to show you how it went and what I got done. 

First of all I made a list so I’d know what I wanted to begin with and what ingredients I might need.  I already had my basics, flour, sugar, eggs, butter, etc.  I wanted to make some new things and some old standbys.  One thing that seems to go over the best is the old tried and true chocolate chip cookie.  One year I found red and green chocolate chips and that made them look so festive.  I hope to find them again this year.  If anybody sees them please leave us a comment and I’ll include that in a post.

A brief history on baking ahead….

Thirty-six years ago my mother had a wonderful idea to make Christmas goodies months ahead of time.  She always held an Open House for our church family so she made lots and lots of goodies.   Some of her treats included brownies, divinity candy tinted pink and green, date roll, cooked ham sandwiched between homemade rolls, tasty pastries (strawberry filled pastry), cheese straws and of course sausage balls.  We would take a day and spread  newspapers all over our kitchen counters.  You wouldn’t believe what a help this is in clean up!  Then she’d get out all the ingredients she’d been stock piling since summer, her mixing bowls and all the recipes along with her list and we’d get to work.  It was wonderful!  What a memory she gave me!

By doing it this way it relieves some stress for December.   It also makes the holidays a little more spread out and you can enjoy things so much better as you do them instead of feeling rushed and flustered.  I know if I’m too pushed for time I end up just shutting down.  I can’t get anything done!

So here’s what I got done in two hours.  I began one night at 7:00 & stopped at 9:00. 

Here’s my baking area ~

And here you can see all my supplies.  I like to work in this corner.  David put lighting in for me under the counters for my Christmas present last year cause it was real dark over here.  I have all my flour and sugar in this open cabinet along with spices and baking needs.  In the cabinet to the right I have mixing bowls and measuring cups.

I lay out sheets of foil and label them first thing.

Then I lay out a sheet of wax paper sprinkled with flour and put the cookie dough on this and shape it into a roll.  The flour makes it easy to take the paper off when you remove them from the freezer.

Here’s the finished rolls~ 

I doubled each recipe and made two rolls each of Old Fashioned Sour Cream cookies, Chocolate Crinkles, Mini-Snowball Chocolate Chip cookies and Christmas Snickerdoodles.  I now have eight rolls in the freezer which will be about 40 dozen cookies!!!  I’m sooo excited!

 It was fun ~ I didn’t get so tired and now when I get ready to make cookies I can do the fun part ~ baking and eating!

I will include some of these cookie recipes in upcoming posts.

Talk to ya later:)

It’s Autumn!!  Yeah! 

 It doesn’t feel like Autumn with 76 degree temperatures. 

It doesn’t smell like Autumn ~  that smell of leaves burning.  (We don’t have enough leaves to burn yet.)

But it sure is tasting like Autumn at our home as of last night.  

I made my first pumpkin recipe and the whole house smelled good.

Here’s a close up shot of  Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins ~ are they ever yummy!

Here’s the recipe but get ready to freeze some cause I made 30 muffins with this recipe!

PUMPKIN CHOCOLATE CHIP MUFFINS 

4 eggs

2 cups sugar

1 -16 oz. can pureed pumpkin

1 1/2 cups oil (can use butter)

3 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

1 package chocolate chips

In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs, sugar, pumpkin and oil until smooth.  Add in dry ingredients and mix well.  Fold in chocolate chips.  Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups 3/4 full.  Bake 16-20 minutes at 400 degrees.  Makes 24-30 muffins.

I did use about 2 t. of cinnamon & my daughter uses butter instead of oil and they do fine.  Her hubby eats them right out of the freezer! 

Here’s Luke first thing this morning “modeling” for me:)

Talk to ya later:)

 When you ask my sweet granddaughter what she loves to do at her nana’s house.  She will tell you that she loves to have a tea party.

When you ask my precious grandson what he likes to do he will tell you “Wash de dishes!” 

The day this was taken we did both!

Now tea parties are for girls only but since Benjamin is a little boy we always include him.  This was a tea party/picnic/lunch.

Here’s Benjamin’s “puppy” sandwich.

Here’s Bethany’s “little girl” sandwich.

And heres’ an shot of the whole picnic. 

The menu included ~ peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cheese crackers, raisins, blueberries and milk.  They LOVE blueberries!  I always keep some in my freezer for them.

 Oh, how I love these children.  They are so much fun to play with and they love coming to my home which continually amazes me. 

What an awesome responsibility…being the grandparent.  My grandparents are such a huge part of my childhood memories even though I did not see them often.  They were still MY grandparents.  So I figured out long ago that no matter how I choose to handle this grandparent thing, I am a grandmother to these children and I will be remembered one way or another ~ with good memories or not so good memories.  It’s my choice. 

Kind of like being the in-law.  You can like it or not but if your children marry, you will be the mother-in-law.  Now what kind of mother-in-law you are is your choice but you are one just the same!  Scary huh:)

ANYway, it was a fun day.  Benjamin washed dishes, Bethany helped me pick flowers from the garden and arrange them.  They got to watch a Veggietales movie and we ended our time with a tea party.  What more could you want in a day! 

We’re still waiting on the new baby to make his appearance.  Shouldn’t be long now!  He was due yesterday!

Talk to ya later:)

Okay, I’m fixing to free some of you folks up right here and now.  Forever, I was afraid to redo a piece of furniture, or repaint a room.  I thought if I painted it and did not like it that would be the end of the world.  Then my friend told me ~ “it’s just paint”.  It’s not like you can’t go over it or change it or do it another way!  So that was the phrase that changed my attitude about changing things in my home.  You’re about to see that theory put to practice.

Here’s my laundry room.  It began six years ago as a room I’d ragpainted.  I’d taken a sock, a pan of white paint, a pan of taupe colored paint and painted the whole room taupe and white.  It was wonderful.  It was low maintenance.  It never looked dirty.  It was great.  That was six years ago.  I’m tired of it that way.  I wanted a change.

Sooo this summer during my project month I repainted the laundry room along with my back entry with my signature color…red.  I loved the back entry.

It looks warm and cozy and I have my old things on the wall and it makes me happy.

BUT the laundry room was another story.  It was too, too dark.  The dark color closed it in and I hated even walking in there.  Now I may have told you this before but I believe our kitchens and our laundry rooms should be very cheerful because that is where we spend a huge amount of time as keepers of the home.   But the thought of redoing it right then was not appealing at all!  So I left it.  I did not want to do it over but it has been on my mind since July. I knew I would redo it; I just did not know when.

Last week was the “when”!

Here I am in mid-production.  It took two coats of tinted primer (helps cover the pigment in the red) and two coats of color to cover up all the red but it was well worth the trouble.

Doesn’t this look great!!  I just love it.  I want to do new curtains over my shelves cause this is an old cloth shower curtain I have used for almost 10 years and it’s very faded.  But for now it works.  It covers up all the shelves and I like that.

This is the first time I’ve thoroughly done a project in one day…I think?  I painted the woodwork and cleaned the floors behind the washer and dryer and all around the walls as well as the middle.  I felt so good when I finished.  I just kept going in there and looking at it over and over:)

Here’s another shot of the back entry.  The picture is from my sister-in-law, the cross from David’s sister and the wood ironing board is a children’s toy from long, long ago.

Look at this ….is this not precious!!  Well now of course I would think so because this is my daughter and grandson.  But I just love pictures from the back.  I took one over 30 years ago of my two nephews when they were 2 & 3 and were sitting out on my parents back step.  One of them had on a cowboy hat and they were just talking to each other oblivious to anybody behind them.  I loved the way their little backs looked and their little heads.  They are now almost 32 & 33 years old.  Where did the time go???

  I love this picture of Bekah and Benjamin because I know how fast he will grow.  I know that he will be grown before we turn around.  I love that he is holding his mother’s hand and trusting her to take care of him.

Here’s another one that makes me happy…

Bethany told me she had something to show me that I was going to just LOVE.  She said “Nana, it’s just the cutest little thing.”.  Then she brought this out that she had made with her mother’s help.  I also love the grin behind her:)

And last but not least…this is what we are waiting for this week.  We are so excited about our new grandbaby due to arrive in five days!! 

This “nana” business is absolutely awesome!!  

All you prayer warriors out there please pray for my baby girl’s safe delivery of baby #3:)

Thank you!!

It’s checkin’ in time again.   How are you doing?  We have three months till the big day!  Are you getting things done.  We’ve had several folks tell me they are working on their gift buying and are doing very well.  Thanks for the comments:)

I’m down to just a few now but thought I’d show you a picture of one of my ideas I told you about last month.

Luke loves, loves, loves the University of Alabama.  I found these things at K-Mart and will put them together in one box. He will love it and it’s something he will use.

I’ve also begun to buy things I will need for my baking days the next two months. 

Mainly I’m stocking my pantry with lots of flour and sugar.  I also got butter, choc. chips, butterscotch chips, cocoa and baking spray.  I hate running out when I’m right in the middle of a baking day. 

I have set two days in October and two days in November to be my baking days.  I want to begin by making cookie dough and freezing it in rolls in October, then in November I want to bake the cookies and put them on platters to freeze. 

This is my downfall every year and I am determined to see if this will be a better year by doing this.  I get the dough made but then I don’t have the cookies ready to go and we’re in a hurry and I don’t want to stop and bake.  So this year I’m gonna do it different and see if it works. 

I’ll defnitely let you know:)