The Ultimate Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Craisin Cookie!

What do you do when your husband is away on a golf trip and you are snowed in the house with two little girls? You bake! Mira, Amelia, and I whipped up a batch of the best cookies in the world. And because I like you, I'm going to share the recipe!

Ultimate Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Craisin Cookies

What you need:
1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
3 cups quick-cooking OR old fashioned oats
1 1/3 cups flour
1 cup craisins
1 bag milk chocolate chips


What you do:
First, find the cutest little helper you can.
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together butter and sugar. Add baking soda, vanilla, salt, and eggs. Mix thoroughly.
Add flour and mix. Add oatmeal and mix.

Then stir in by hand craisins and chocolate chips.
Use a cookie scoop and put the balls on a cookie sheet. Bake for about 11 minutes.
Tip #1: Because I like flatter cookies rather than thick ones, with about 2 minutes to go in cooking time, I raise the cookie sheet in the oven and drop it on the rack. It flattens the cookies out a little. I learned that trick from my mom!

Tip #2: I take the cookies out of the oven just before they are actually done to prevent overcooking. They finish up cooking on the cookie sheet, then transfer them to a wire rack.
One satisfied customer!

Conferences and a funny

Mira: Mom, if we have any old tire lying around, find a tree and get a rope. Tire swing!

I'll get right on that. Unfortunately, we don't have a tree large enough to support a tire or a little girl who wants to swing on it!

Last night I went to Mira's last first grade conference for the year. She received a glowing report from her teacher. Chris and I are so proud! She was called "a model student" and "a delight to have in the classroom." Ms. Lawson shared with us some test scores and said that the goal is to have the children reading 60 words per minute by the end of the year. Mira can currently read 100 words per minute. She's doing well in math and seems to understand the concepts. It's great to hear how well she is doing in school. Ms. Lawson really enjoys having Mira in the class.

Great job, Mira! We love you!

Amelia learns to swim

Amelia took the "plunge" today and started swimming lessons! We love how much progress Mira has made in the past year (we think she's actually a fish!) and want Amelia to have some swimming skills before the summer pool and lake season begins in a few months.

Amelia did well for the most part. She was a little afraid at first, and even cried a little, but her instructor Amy coaxed her away from the platform and helped her float on her back. It was really fun to see! (To be fair, it was a rather chaotic lesson, for they started in a different pool when a suspicious brown floating object was found in the big pool. Then they moved to the pool they were supposed to be in midway through the lesson.)

Scared and crying a little!
Here she goes!
High-five from the teacher:
And my sweet family:
We are looking forward to another fun weekend, this time at a family birthday party, complete with swimming at their house! (Don't worry, it's an indoor pool.) Valentine's Day next week. Did you tell your sweetie you love him or her today?

New art and Uh-Oh.

Mira completed her third art class this past weekend. They are doing all sorts of winter art scenes and this week they used a combination of glue, glitter, and shaving cream to make snow! Once the concoction dried, it was a bit like puffy paint and gave the artwork texture. Here is Mira displaying her creation:

And I have an uh-oh. Mira showed me a note she had written and planned to give to her former boyfriend, Isaac. It says, "Did you like are first kiss? If you did let's do it again. I am sorey I chas you at reses." (Spelling errors are so cute with little kids!)
Uggh. I'm not loving the way she keeps thinking about kissing boys. I just ask her to try to wait a little bit longer until she is older. Fortunately, Isaac isn't interested in kissing right now. (Stay strong, Isaac!)

Wanamingo Bingo Mingo Flingo!

Somehow, our wonderful winter gathering yesterday has adopted the name the Wanamingo Bingo Mingo Flingo! Works for me! (I think it was courtesy of cousin Sarah.) Here are a few photos of the event yesterday. So many people were taking photos, so I hope you are all able to post your photos as well.

We all donated prizes for the kids for the Fish Pond. It was a huge hit!
Amelia loved her Fish Pond prize:
Playing cards:
Miles, our newest addition:
The Yahtzee players:
My handsome husband:
Michelle, Margene, and Val. We dubbed them "The Lunch Ladies" for all the hard work they did setting up the meal:
Justin and Mandy:

Me and Kelly:
Katie, Casey, and Bekki:
It was a wonderful day with Bingo, cards, Yahtzee, bean bag game, Fish Pond, and two concerts! Michael played some great music, and Ben played the trumpet. Both were wonderful!

Looking forward to this family tradition next year!

The Bookworm and the Puzzler

Mira and Amelia have both discovered new passions lately. For Mira, and I admit it's a passion I've tried hard to encourage, she's loving reading! She's quickly progressed from the "I Can Read!" books to chapter books. She and I read The Boxcar Children together recently and she loved it! I'm so glad because it was one of my favorite books as a kid. She liked it so much that she promptly reread it just a couple of days later. And now she and Amelia play "Henry and Jesse," the world of two orphaned children. (Admittedly, I feel a tad uncomfortable when they ask each other where their mom and dad are and the reply is, "They are dead." Ouch!)
But I love that she is reading so much. She chose a few chapter books at the library and read a 160-page book in 2 days! She was able to give me an outline of the story, so I assume she understands what she is reading for the most part. She's my daughter for sure!
And Amelia is discovering a love of puzzles. She pulls out her 24-piece puzzles every so often and it seems like she is able to put them together with fair ease. It's really fun to see the proud look on her face when she finishes one! She's growing so fast. I sort of want to slow down this last bit of little-girl phase. But on the other hand, I do enjoy the independence I now have with older girls. I can do things when they are in the house that doesn't require me to constantly keep my eye on them. It's a nice freedom.

February tomorrow! Here's to hoping for a better month, weather-wise. We're halfway through winter!

The fun 4-0.

So I turned 40 today. And I had a wonderful day! Age is merely a state of mind, yes? And I certainly don't feel 40, so I embraced it and did all my favorite things:

Starbucks, shopping, lunch with a friend, Barnes and Noble, pedicure, facial, massage, dinner out at Benihana, and a piece of my favorite chocolate cake from Biaggi's. It was truly a great relaxing day. I think I'll turn 40 again next year . . . and for several years after that!

New mixing bowls for my kitchen. Aren't they pretty!
Flowers from my wonderful husband and daughters!Dinner photo at Benihana:
Thanks to everyone for the well wishes all day long!

Put them to work!

When you are tired of your kids fighting and the floor is wet from mopping, just put them to work. They actually think it's fun and you get some housework done. Fighting ended!
When that's done, you can just bowl in the kitchen!

Mira takes an art class

There was an art class offered this winter through our parks and rec department. We enrolled Mira and she had her first class today. She loved it! They created snowflake snowmen and did a drawing of a cat holding a valentine in its mouth.
Next week might be pottery week, which has Mira very excited! We'll post her creations weekly.

Kitchen renovation :: Complete!

After just one week, our kitchen renovation is done! We absolutely love it! Our kitchen space has doubled, and we've made use of a formerly useless formal dining room. We can't believe the difference in our house with this change.

Chris's dad and cousin did most of the work, and they did it in just a week. We were very impressed! We took down a wall between our kitchen and formal dining room, opening up the space into one large kitchen. See the results for yourself:

The old view from the kitchen into the old dining room. We removed this rust-colored wall and took up the ceramic tile flooring in the kitchen and the carpet in the dining room:
New view:
Old view from corner of kitchen. We took down the rust-colored wall:
New view:Old view from old dining room into kitchen:
New view. We added an island and pendant lighting above it:
Old view from the sliding glass door:
New view. We added an island in the kitchen. It's huge! (77 x 41 inches. Plenty of space!):
The flooring is one of my favorite things. Really unique and pretty. It goes with lots of different tones of wood:
One of my favorite new decorations. I framed two handwritten recipes from Grandma Lindell. They are so special to me! I added a pretty sheet of paper to matte them. I love how Grandma wrote "Good Luck!" on both of them! One recipe is for her oatmeal raisin cookies. The other is for my favorite peach pineapple jam:
That's the tour. What do you think of the renovation? We couldn't be happier!

Twins!

Mira and I have the same scarf. She really, really wanted to dress alike one day, so we both donned our black outfits and added the scarf for a little color. Like mother, like daughter!

It's a mess!

Chris and I decided to do a "little" kitchen remodel this month. We have (had!) a largely unused formal dining room next to our kitchen for the past 8 years we've lived in this house. We finally decided to put that wasted space to good use and knock down the wall between the kitchen and dining room! The wall came tumbling down last Thursday, and things have been moving fast! We have had the entire kitchen repainted, a soffit built, the ceramic tile floor pulled up, and new lighting put in. Tomorrow our hardwood floor goes in, spanning both rooms, then the island with a granite countertop comes. We can't wait! We are essentially doubling the size of our kitchen and the island is giving us a breakfast bar and some much needed countertop space to prep food on. We hope it's all finished within a week. We'll post photos of the before and after once it's all finished.

Amelia loves her new dog:
Mira likes to do her own hair. Pretty! More is more, in her opinion.
Mira and Amelia were largely made to stay upstairs with me this weekend to keep out of the way of renovations and the dust (oh, the dust!). They kept pretty busy in their playroom, and even threw me and Chris a tea party! We kept our pinkies up and enjoyed the make believe.