Baking Experiments

Given my newly found loads of free time, I've decided to get the creative juices flowing.  First up - making halloween cookies.

Now, I've never make cookies by rolling out the dough and using cookie cutters all by myself.  Sure, I've helped my mom make cookies numerous times but she was the one that would make the dough and roll it out; I would just cut them and decorate them (you know, the fun and easy stuff).  So this was definitely going to be an experiment.

Dough making - totally easy.  No problems.  Rolling the cookie dough out - a little more challenging.  Not impossible but I had the common challenges of rolling the dough too thin, or not thin enough, the dough sticking to the rolling pin, getting too much flour in the dough.  But all in all, I think it worked out pretty well.

First Batch - not so great

Second batch - looks better

I also made my own icing, tinting it various colors and decorating the cookies.  Again, the icing was easy to make but, considering the dough made 4 dozen cookies, it was a LOT of decorating.  By the end, I decided not to put faces on the pumpkins. 

So Halloween cookies were a success.  Eric took the majority of them to work as the two of us don't really need to eat 4 dozen cookies.  Not sure what the next baking experiment will be.  Perhaps some candies for Christmas...

Pumpkin Patch

A few days before Halloween, we took took Ashley to her first pumpking patch.  We went to a place called Schnepf farms where they have a pumpkin patch, corn maze, petting zoo, rides, bonfires and more.  It was a neat experience but, given how far away from our house that it is, I doubt we'll ever go back. 

Hey, what are these things?

Gotta play with the corn in the corn maze

First Plane Ride

Ashley got to go on her first plane ride when I took her to San Antonio for my 10 year college reunion.  Eric had to work so my awesome mother-in-law came with me instead.  It meant that I got to take Ashley out and show her off but then leave her at the hotel when everyone went out at night.  It was the best of both worlds.

She did awesome on the plane. She was really tired and wouldn't nap but she had a great time playing with her toys, the tray table and whatever else she could get her hands on.  She never made a peep the entire time and was a perfect angel.    On the trip back to Phoenix, she even fell asleep for an hour, which was awesome since our flight was delayed and she was exhausted.

First Plane Ride

What's out there?

It was so wonderful to see all of my old college friends again.  We went to the usual haunts - Bays, Alamo Cafe, Rudy's - and a few new ones too.

Oh, there are no ZX's in hell!

Lunch at Rudy's

Since so many of us have kids now, we even had a play date for the little ones.

Trinity's campus is so different from when I was there.  The fountain that used to be at the entrance to the school is in a completely different spot, many of the buildings have been leveled and re-built.  Even with all the differences, the place still holds so many wonderful memories.  I was truly blessed to be able to go there for college and make such great life-long friends (and I can't forget that I got a pretty good education too) 

New Entrance to Campus - nothing like when I was there

New spot for the fountain

It's been 6 years since I had been back to Trinity and San Antonio.  Hopefully another great reunion with all of us happens again sooner than 6 more years!

6 and 7 months

So much has happened over the past few months that I forgot to post a 6 month blog.  So we're going to combine 6 and 7 months all into one entry. 

Ashley's gotten so big over the past two months and has learned so many new things.  She is a very observant child, always watching things.  You can see her learning new things all the time, her little brain works so hard. 

A few days after her 6th month birthday, her bottom two teeth broke through at the same time.  We were pretty surprised as she showed no signs of teething prior to that.  Her gums didn't turn red or get swollen nor was she fussy.  It's been really difficult to get a good picture of her new teeth - this is the best we've been able to do over the past month.

We've continued to expand her solid food repertoire.  She's tried (and liked) peaches, pears, apples, bananas and sweet potatoes to add to the carrots, green beans, and squash that she tried last month.  I've also ventured into making our own baby food rather than buying.  It's incredibly easy.  She's not a fan of the homemade green beans or carrots but I had trouble getting those smoothly pureed.  Everything else she did really good with.  It's so great to see her enjoying her food - she gets this really big grin and practically shakes with excitement.

She's doing really well with sitting by herself.  It's not always easy to get her set up in a position where she can balance on her own.  She's also not a big fan of falling over when she loses her balance.  All in good time.  She's getting to be a little bit of a mover and shaker.  She wiggles herself around in circles.  You can tell that she wants to scoot forward and she's working on figuring out how.  She tends to roll onto her side, plant her feet and push forward while reaching.  If you ask me, it's pretty darn cute.