Cookie Baking Night (12/20/22)

 Tonight was Cookie Baking Night, and it was a our Niece and Nephew Christmas party. In attendance this evening: Carissa, Allison. Rylar, Enzo, and Abigail. 

As usual, we started the party by decorating a gingerbread house-shaped cookie. Eveyone loves this part. They get to show off their own style. 

But, no one enjoys this part more than Uncle Greg does. He hasn't missed a chance to decorate one of these cookies yet. 

Next, we read the Christmas story from the Bible. 

Followed by playing the dice game for prizes. 

Another Cookie Baking Night, another Niece and Nephew Christmas party has come and gone. 

As usual, a fun time was had by all. 

Cookie Baking Night (11/28/2022)

 Tonight was Cookie Baking Night. In attendance this evening: Carrisa, Allison, Rylar, Enzo, and Abigail. Tonight was Rylar's birthday choice. Rylar turns 11 years old in a few days. For supper, he chose: Chicken Noodle Soup, Mandarin Oranges, and Apple Slices. For his cookie: He chose M&M cookies. 

For Bible time the past couple months, we've been working on memorizing the first verse of Hark The Herald Angels Sing and talking about what it means. This time, we talked about the line "Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled". 

At the end of the evening, Rylar chose the game we played. He went with Pictureka, a Cookie Baking night favorite.

As usual, a fun time was had by all. 

Cookie Baking Nights (11/14/2022)

Tonight was Cookie Baking Night. In attendance this evening: Allison, Rylar, Enzo, and Abigail. Due to illness and scheduling conflicts, we've had a two-month break from Cookie Baking Nights. 

It's good to be back. 

Tonight we made cream cheese pumpkin rolls. 

This week is Samaritan's Purse Operation Christmas Child Shoebox collection week. Our church packed several boxes, and Papa-Larry and I are going to drop them off at collection sites this week. 

We still had a few boxes we were finishing up packing as a family. The kids helped me add to them, put labels on them, and stack them up with the rest of the church boxes. 

We all had fun doing it.

Thanks be to God for all the shoeboxes packed this year and the many children who will receive them all around the world. 

Another Cookie Baking Night has come and gone. As usual, a fun time was had by all. 

Cookie Baking Night 09/12/22

 Tonight was Cookie Baking Night. In attendance this evening: Allison, Rylar, Enzo, and Abigail. Tonight was Abigail's birthday choice. She turned 4 years old at the end of August. For supper we had cheese pizza and strawberries. For her cookie choice she asked for Unicorn cookies. 

I found a recipe using Oreo cookies and that's what we set out to make. 

We dipped the Oreos in melted almond bark and then decorated them. 

They turned out pretty cute. Some exercised more creative license than others in the decorating process, but in the end most of them looked like unicorns. 

And they tasted pretty good too. 

The days are getting darker earlier now that we're heading toward fall, so we decided to take a walk to the local gas station for a treat while we still can. 

Usually, the birthday person chooses a game we play in some of our down time, but since Abigail isn't quite into games yet, I brought out the toys and they spent a few minutes playing with those. 

Amongst the toys, Allison found a book that showed how to draw animals using different shaps as the basic structure. She spent the "play time" doing that. 

We might have a budding artist on our hands. 

Another Cookie Baking Night, another birthday choice, has come and gone. As usual, a fun time was had by all. 

Cookie Baking Night (08/22/22)

Tonight was Cookie Baking Night. In attendance this evening: Carissa, Allison, Rylar, Enzo, and Abigail. Tonight was Allison's birthday choice. She turned 12 years old just a couple days ago. For supper, she chose pancakes in the shape of letters (preferably the first letter of each one of our names), blueberries, and mandarin oranges. For her "cookie" she chose Strawberry-Rhubarb Upside Down Cake. I must confess, both Allison's supper choice and her "cookie" choice challenged me in big ways. 

I think Greg planted the "alphabet-shaped" pancake idea when Allison requested pancakes a couple years ago and he made one in the shape of an A for her. This year she asked for all of them in alphabet shapes. Greg is the pancake maker of the family. I can count on one hand (seriously, one hand) how many times I've made pancakes in my entire life. How many times have I made alphabet-shaped pancakes, you ask? That answer would be ZERO. Greg would have been more than happy to make the pancakes, but he has been out of town for the past two weeks and returned home right as Cookie Baking Night was starting. So, I was on my own for this adventure. 

Let the record show: Each family member in attendance had the first letter of their first name represented in pancake form (Allison, Abigail, Enzo, Greg, Katrina, Larry, Rylar). Should you ever need to do this yourself, a squeeze bottle will do the job quite nicely.

As it turns out, Abigail is a huge fan of pancakes smothered in whipped cream (no syrup required). She had a whipped-cream mustache through all of supper time. 

We actually started making the Strawberry-Rhubarb Upside Down cake before we ate supper tonight as it needed an hour to bake. This recipe was also a first for me. Apparently, Allison had this cake at a gathering one time and knew instantly it would be her Cookie Baking Night birthday choice. How many times have we made a cake at Cookie Baking Night you ask? Well, the answer to that question would also be ZERO. They take a long time to bake. How many times have I made a Strawberry-Rhubarb Upside Down Cake, you say? You guessed it. ZERO. 

The ingredients were easy for us to come by. We're big strawberry eaters around here. Rarely will you find our refrigerator without strawberries in it. And we grow rhubarb in the backyard. We had a somewhat rainy summer this year (especially in the beginning), which makes for a plentiful rhubarb crop. 

I have to say, the cake turned out really well. I will add this to my recipe rotation. Always looking for another way to use up that rhubarb. The kids really liked it. 

Here's a link to the recipe we used if anyone else is interested in it. Strawberry-Rhubarb Upside Down Cake. 

We ended the evening with a walk to the local gas station for an ice cream/candy treat. 

Another Cookie Baking Night, another birthday choice has come and gone. And, as usual, a fun time was had by all.