Summer Summer TIME!

As I look at the calendar I begin to realize that my summer is almost over and another school year is upon us.  While I love my job, I also love the lazy days of summer.  Well lazy may not be the best way to describe this summer!  We have traveled a lot and have had a ton of fun.  I started the summer with a mommy vacation to visit my best friend since 5th grade in Atlanta, GA.  We had a great time and it was super relaxing.  After I got back from my weekend in ATL, it was off to Branson with John's family for a few days.  We had a nice time and went to Silver Dollar City and the Dixie Stampede.  Also had some fun in the pool.  John, myself, Paul, and Emily rode the motorcycles down so that added to our adventure.  We then had a week to recover and it was off to the UP for the 4th of July.  I LOVE being in Escanaba over the 4th.  So many friends and family are around it brings back so many memories of growing up there.  We then came home for a week, actually the boys were home for 2 days and then went to G and G Haase for a few days.  John and I had a 40th bday party for a dear friend in Cedar Rapids for the weekend and had a great time being with our old crew of peeps.  We then went to Okoboji for the following week for John's family reunion.  It was pretty chilly the first couple days and then started to warm up.  We were able to get out on John's uncle's boat and do some tubing.  John and I also went para-sailing (my first time) and it was awesome.  I can't wait to do it again!!!  The boys did quite a bit of fishing and Andrew and Jacob each caught their first fish!  We are now at home trying to enjoy the last few weeks of vacation before I head back to work.  I am nervous and excited as I am starting my new job at Southview Middle School.  While I have worked with many/most of the people in the building, it will be a new experience. Until next time!

Sugar Cookies

I get excited every year for Christmas.  It's my favorite holiday and I enjoy it even more now that I have children.  This year I was deciding what kinds of cookies to make and thought I would keep it simple to sugar cookies, peanut butter blossoms, and chex mix (OK not a cookie, but it tastes super good!).  As I started to make the sugar cookies I had visions of what they would look like.  Beautifully decorated sugar cookies with detail on them that looked too good to eat.  I was so excited to start on this project I could hardly wait for the dough to harden in the fridge! 

what the sugar cookies were intended to look like

How the cookies turned out.

Well I started to make the cookies into shapes with my kids help, there was a little stress starting as my kids are little and tend to want to touch everything and not give me 5 seconds to do what needs to be done in order for them to make the cookies.  Once we cut out all the cookies, my boys were excited to frost them, but how could they frost them with the vision I had for these sugar cookies??  I got out my cake frosting bags and tips and started to frost the cookies, but much to my dismay, they weren't exactly turning out Pinterest worthy.  Instead they were looking like blobs on top of blobs on my cookies and my kids were not involved.  My oldest asked, can I put some sprinkles on the cookies?  At that point I realized, wow what a waste of time trying to have beautiful sugar cookies because I was missing out on an important memory with my boys.  At that point it was no holds bar!  Sprinkles everywhere, TONS of frosting, designs, etc...I have to say, THESE are the most beautiful sugar cookies ever and the memory that my kids and I made was priceless.