The snow and I are friends.

  At first I was quite frustrated at how it shuts everything down around here but then a friend reminded me that at least in Oregon snow makes us stay home and enjoy it, whereas back East we would just keep plowing through to school, work, church, and any other event or activity.  And I would have to agree…it IS nice to have "snow days" every now and then as an adult.  Just when you thought they were only for kids.


   A couple evenings ago I was complaining about how I have completely let exercise slide to the back burner in my life…..scratch that. It's slid OFF the back burner and back behind the stove somewhere, gathering dust bunnies and never to be seen again unless someone goes fishing around with a yardstick.  And even then, the fishing behind the stove makes you hungry, and the stove is just right there and so….you do the math.
  So we decided to be a little adventurous and…….



 bundle up the girlies and go on a walk to the town's teeny, tiny, grocery store for some flour.  So I could go home and bake sugar cookies.  Anyone else find the irony in this situation??





   Charlotte had this expression on her face the entire time.  I'm not sure if she was surprised by it all, bored out of her mind, or a little bit grumpy.  But at least she seemed content to let us drag her out in the elements, and didn't put up too much of a fight.:)


   If you're wondering why I changed hats….Randy gave me his on the way home because it has those handy dandy ear flaps and mine just wasn't cutting the chill.  What a gentleman.


   Randy built a nice little fire for us in the outdoor fire stove thingy.  Jocelyn tried to take my hat.  Charlotte sat in the car and hollered for help.


 
 
   Ahhh yes, then it was time for the sugar cookies.  Funny I should blog about holding myself to a standard of grace and not perfection….what perfect timing I have!

   Well FYI, this mama doesn't make sugar cookies all that much.  In fact, I could count on one hand the times I've made them in my LIFE.  And the recipe said to let the dough cool, which I did…..for like an hour.  Is that not long enough?  In any case, we tried to roll them out and the girls were oh-so-excited but the dough was just SO sticky it wouldn't work.  All of you Betty Crockers are just wishing you could jump through the screen right now and fix my cookies, I know.
 
   So I put the dough back in the fridge for another time, (which has now morphed into days) but they still were able to have a little bit of fun in the process.  I think they just thought we were playing with play-dough, so I'm still no big failure in their eyes.   Jocelyn has asked about the cookies only a couple of times, so maybe she'll forget all about them and then we can go for round 2 and it will be an exciting surprise all over again.  Ha.


  "Oh mama I just can't wait to taste these freshly-baked, frosted sugar cookies that are shaped like little reindeer and covered in sprinkles!  And just in time for the holidays!"  *tuba sound* Wah-wahhhh.



You can see it like glue there on the rolling pin.  Oh boy.

   In other news, I'm quite sure these pictures will really frustrate me someday because you can still see all of the messiness that is our kitchen/dining room these days.  But I guess I don't care too much because in my opinion, we are still very much "moving in".  How long can I keep saying that?  2, 3 months maybe?  Anyway, to off-set the future embarrassment, I will give you a peek of our living room, which is actually almost finished.


   There!  Now just for another, oh…..4-5 rooms or so and we'll be all done!  Actually that's not entirely true because my mind changes every 15 minutes or so and this poor furniture has been in every single combination possible in probably every room in the house, and so who knows.  I still don't know if I'm even done with this room or if I'm going to hang some things on the wall around the TV yet, but we're going to call it done for now.

(Banner gracing the ledge can be found over here at the Parcel Post Company.)

  In closing(I sound so official) lately I have found myself thinking of all of the movies I want to watch this time of year.  White Christmas, It's a Wonderful Life, Elf, The Grinch….etc.  What are some of your favorites?  And PLEASE by all means if they are available on Netflix you get like 100 bonus points.  Netflix doesn't have Elf and I'm still a little bitter about it.

Hope your Monday is filled with Christmas movies and sugar cookies.  That actually turn out.