Friday, April 30, 2010

Great Grammy's Amish Bread

Tim's paternal grandmother, known to all of us as Grammy, was a wonderful cook and baker. One of the recipes we all loved the best was her Amish Bread. We realized only recently that Aunt Kayci has kept Grammy's Amish Bread starter/recipe going since she passed away 2 1/2 years ago. As luck would have it the bread was ready to make while we were there so Aunt Kayci invited us out to the farm (which happens to be Grammy's old house) to enjoy a morning of learning how to make delicious Amish Bread. Thank you so much Aunt Kayci!
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Reagan and Aunt Kayci getting down to business
I love the flour on Reagan's nose and the towel Aunt Kayci gave her to wipe her hands on placed over her shoulder. What a little baker! :)
Kennedy loves to explore and she had lots of fun crawling under, around and through Aunt Kayci's kitchen table/work space
Reagan helping Aunt Kayci mix all the dry ingredients for the bread
Kennedy is a good little mix master too ;)
Uncle Randy showed Reagan how to sprinkle the top of the Amish Bread dough with a cinnamon sugar mixture
Unfortunately Aunt Kayci probably had a little too much help and then we got totally distracted by looking at the baby's nursery (including cool toys and super cute clothing) and so some of the bread ended up a "little" over done... So long to our first attempt at Amish Bread!
With some of the bread that turned out alright Aunt Kayci taught Reagan how to see if the bread was done by sticking a toothpick in the center (if it comes out clean it's ready to come out of the oven). Reagan loved this and kept wanting to stick all of the bread repeatedly. lol :)
Kennedy enjoys blowing off all her food to cool it off. It is so cute and over exaggerated! :)
Reagan took a couple of breaks from making bread to play with Nan and Chum. She is such a dog person! I kind of feel bad for her that she has two parents who have absolutely no intention of ever owning a dog. Bless her heart, I'm sure she'll own one as soon as she's on her own! :)

Thank you Aunt Kayci for inviting us over to learn how to make Grammy's Amish Bread as well as providing us the starter to make some of our own. We had a great time and appreciated it so much! :)

Nonna's House

During our visit to Mt. Olive for Easter (March 27 - April 4) we spent a couple of days and evenings with Nonna. Aunt Kayci and I were even able to spend most of one day scrapbooking together. She did her first page for the G-Man which I loved and totally cracked me up! I introduced her to the Cricut and she decided she wanted to include the animals they have on the farm. So she made this awesome page which had dogs, a cat and a vulture. It's great! lol :) Anyway, thanks for having us over Nonna!
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Putting up a Winnie the Pooh growth chart
I love the way Kennedy says please and I had the camera handy when she happenned to be requesting something - so so sweet! :)
One afternoon Nonna made Easter cookies with the girls. Here Reagan is checking out the Easter cookie cutter choices.
Prepping the work surface

Cutting out the cookies
Well, maybe we should back up a step and roll out the dough first... lol :)
Cutting out cookies after the dough has been rolled out does work a bit better :)

On his way home from work Uncle Mark made a special stop to purchase the girls a Chilly Willy for a sweet afternoon treat
Enjoying snuggle time and cookies with Nonna
For whatever reason the girls decided to climb inside Nonna's coffee table/toy box
They thought it was hilarious when Nonna tried to replace the lid lol :)

Something else they thought was hilarious at Nonna's house (and we thought was even funnier than they did) was a laser light Nonna has for playing with her cats. I was going to show the girls how the cats liked to chase it but it turns out that kiddies enjoy chasing it just as much as kitties! lol :) It was a riot to see the girls and the cat all going nuts after/over that little light. Too funny! lol :)

March Weekend Visit to TN

We went to Tennessee the first weekend in March to visit Grammy and Pop-A-Lops (sorry these are out of order but I forgot I didn't have the pictures and had to ask Dad to locate and send them to me - thanks so much for doing that! :). On Saturday Grammy and Pop-A-Lops played with the girls most of the day so Tim could sleep in and I could go and scrapbook with some friends. I think a good time was had by all and especially by Reagan and Kennedy!
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They started their day off by visiting the Cookeville Depot and the train you can explore

Next they headed to Grammy's school to play on the playground where there is a large pirate ship and lots of other fun activities! What a sport Grammy is to take both wild and crazy girls down the slide at the same time! :)
Climbing away!
I thought Pop-A-Lops title of this picture was appropriate "Kennedy hurtles down the slide"
In the last couple of months Kennedy has starting opting for the big swings. She thinks she is pretty hot stuff!
After their outdoor adventures they stopped by the Candy Caboose for some choice selections as well as Taco Bell for lunch. Thank you Grammy and Pop-A-Lops for such a super fun day!
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Somehow I didn't manage any pictures, but we had dinner with Uncle Ronnie, Aunt Nancy and crew that night at El Tapatio (our favorite Mexican restaraunt in Cookeville - they have awesome queso dip!!!). On Sunday we met the Andersons at McDonalds in Livingston and Holly, her boy-friend Darcy and her dog Walker all came back to spend the week with us. We had a wonderful time with them and hope they come back to visit us again! We also hope that next time we can manage a picture or two! :)

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Easter Egg Hunt #1

Grammy and Pop-A-Lops came up to visit us the weekend of March 19-21 since we were in Mt. Olive for Palm Sunday and Easter weekends. Grammy decided to have an Easter Egg hunt for the girls and they all had lots of fun!
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Searching for eggs with just a little bit of help

The big girls wanted to stop, open and inspect each egg as they found it rather than finish the egg hunt lol :)
Kennedy loved looking for eggs and got super excited every time she found one. I can't remember for certain now but I think she said "Oh Wow!" everytime she picked one up. Do you remember, Grammy? You can tell by the facial expressions in these next few pictures that Kennedy was totally in to this egg hunt!

After we found all the eggs somehow everyone decided to try out a green marshmellow egg


Except for poor Holden who just had to watch the girls hunt for and eat all that sugar! He'll be ready for them next year though! :)
Thank you for preparing and hiding all the eggs for us, Grammy!

How To Drive Daddy Crazy!

These aren't great pictures but I want to capture the memory so I'm including them anway. :) Reagan and Kennedy discovered that it drives Tim crazy (he over reacts just a bit for their sake) when they scratch the kitten's rough tongue (it is like an emrey board) in one of their "Touch and Feel" books. When they first started doing this they would sit next to each other and pass the book back and forth laughing hysterically for the longest time. It was absolutely hilarious and I really regret not capturing it on tape!
Kennedy taking her turn - they do it very seriously and then break into hysterics as soon as they scratch the tongue

Brownies

A while back (late Feb or early Mar) I had wanted to make Mom's awesome brownies to take to Uncle Dan and Aunt Dorothy's house but ended up realizing I didn't have all the right ingredients. I ended up making some white brownies but they weren't anywhere near as good as Mom's and didn't fix my craving at all! So, a couple of weeks later Reagan and I made sure to get all the ingredients so she could try out her first brownies (can't believe Mom or I haven't made these since she was born but we couldn't think of a time and Reagan didn't seem to know what they were). Anyhoo... they ended up tasting pretty yummy! They were especially yummy because we experimented by making them dark chocolate brownies. I think we'll be making our dark chocolate brownies to take to Uncle Dan and Aunt Dorothy's house this weekend to help us enjoy watching the Kentucky Derby! :)
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The little baker hard at work!
Inspecting her product
Trying it out
Pretty good! :)

March Outdoor Fun - Monster Truck, Puppy and Ice Cream

We had some really beautiful weather and days to enjoy during the month of March. It's always so nice to be able to get outside and begin enjoying the space to run around! :)
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Our neighbor girls are wonderful with our girls and Reagan and Kennedy love to play with them! We frequently play with them on the trampolines, swings and of course out front with the Monster Truck!
Reagan fell out of the truck so they brought their new puppy, Puddles, out to make her feel better as well as give her some much needed kisses! So sweet! :)
Kennedy is a bit uncertain about dogs
Reagan on the other hand is a huge dog fan!
Kennedy frequently decides she's ready to take her fate into her own hands and pulls out her Little People Princess car she got from Grandma and Grandpa for her birthday. It's a little more her speed although Kennedy also loves the little motorized jeep Grandma and Grandpa gave Reagan for her 2nd birthday - she's better at driving it than Reagan. lol :)
We have an ice cream man who frequents our neighborhood so we decided to take advantage of his services one sunny afternoon and invited our neighbors to join us in our sweet treat. :) Super huge popsicles!
Throughly enjoying her ice cream sandwich
Gal pals enjoying a sweet afternoon snack! :)
What a little multi-tasker!
Later when Daddy got home, the girls decided it was time for some Monster Truck fun! Reagan hasn't quite gotten the hang of driving yet and here she is flying down the driveway backwards - at least they're both loving the ride! lol :)
There they go! Headed in the right direction to boot! lol :)
Quick break for hugs :)
Reagan is definitely related to her Grammy - Put the pedal to the metal - Go girl Go!
And around we go again!
Thank you for the great Monster Truck Grammy and Pop-A-Lops - all the neighborhood kids love it! One night there were 9 kids out having fun and taking turns on it! :)