We sat down with a calendar at the beginning of the month to make a list of the things we wanted to do this month, to be purposeful about not overscheduling, but also making and taking the time to do some fun things together as a family.
Last Thursday night we went downtown to ride a boat on the canal and look at the lights.

The boat rides are free Thurs-Sun during December. We decided we should go ahead and go while it was still 60 degrees! We had to wait a little bit, but it wasn't as long as I've seen the line on the weekend.

Friday morning Heather and Ava came over for our 3rd Annual cinnamon roll baking.

The girls in their matching pjs.
Isabella was so very excited for Ava to be coming over and asked me about 20 times where Ava was before she got there. But then once she was there, she was not happy about sharing her toys...part of being two.

In between refereeing over toys, the girls had some times of playing well together, and we got our cinnamon rolls made, after we corrected a fatal mistake I made with the first batch of dough.

A pan for breakfast the next day and some for the freezer.
I'd like to say that we will be brave next year and have all four of our kids with our boys in matching pjs, but we will probably try to find a time the Dad's can have the kids for the 4th annual cinnamon roll bakefest. :)

Friday night we drove out to the Yukon Christmas lights with Michael's parents. My favorite part was when we were in line to drive in and Isabella said in a hushed voice, "I can't wait".

Riding the train through the park.

It has been even more fun with a two year old this year to see Christmas through her eyes.

Weekend scenes

 We began our weekend Friday morning with a trip to the water park with friends. Michael's mom surprised me with a season pass for a 1/2 birthday present, so we will be going more this summer to the water park (aka: human toilet, as my F-I-L calls it).

 Friday night our friends asked us to meet up at our fave burger place, that is finally open again! You should check it out!
After dinner we headed downtown for the kids to play. We ran into some other friends there. So friends, we should all just plan on meeting down there on the weekend. 

Saturday morning breakfast, Michael is the weekend breakfast cook.
After breakfast, Isabella and I went to story time at full circle book store with my mom and then out to lunch.

Saturday night date night: sushi, sno cones, and hanging out together in the park like when we were in high school.

Ah, the weekend, it goes by so fast! 

(And many thanks to Cox for fixing out internet after being offline for 4 days!)

Happy Weekend!

 Today we played with friends. We made a father's day craft, did some bubble art, and the girls played in the sprinkler.

We didn't have plans tonight and made a last minute decision to have a pizza picnic downtown at the park.

Playing with her hair is her telltale sign that she is sleepy. Happy the weekend is here and looking forward to celebrating the dad's in my life!

Back at home

Rainy grocery store adventures

 Bubble mowing

 Summer adventures to the Oklahoma Aquarium

Enjoying a few marshmallows (shinos) from her apron pocket while we get dinner ready

And the most exciting thing this week:

Way to go Thunder! Thunder UP!

In the kitchen

I've been cooking and baking some this week, which is fun for me. Remember when I had a cooking blog? That's clearly gone by the way, and so has trying lots of new recipes. It seems for the last year I mostly do quick and old standbys unless I know I'm going to have extra time. I hope to get back into trying new and involved recipes some day, but that's not realistic on a day to day basis for this season of my life. But, that being said, I enjoy cooking, and think it is important to make time for the relationships you had (marriage, friendships) and things you enjoyed doing prior to becoming a parent.

So, here some things I made this week:

The last time I made these cookies from Annie Eats, I just cooked a few and then rolled the rest into balls, and placed them on a cookie sheet in the freezer. When they were frozen I put them in a ziplock and back in the freezer. Its great to have the homemade dough on hand to just cook a few when needed or more if people are coming over. This week I pulled some out and made heart shaped cookies.


I made a batch of pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. Isabella LOVES these. This time I used half whole wheat flour and half regular and cut down the amount of chocolate chips. They freeze beautifully so they are nice to have on hand for breakfast or snacks.


Heather and I got together for a quick freezer cooking session on Friday.


We made up a batch of high protein pumpkin pancakes to freeze and have on hand for the girl's breakfasts. We adapted the recipe from this blog. We used greek yogurt instead of cottage cheese and whole wheat flour instead of dry oats.


We also made 2 batches of meatballs, Maui chicken, and honey pork chops. All of these recipes are from the book "Don't panic dinner's in the freezer". I own these books now, but they can also be borrowed from the library. I don't have a huge freezer, so part of what I liked about the books is that it details ways to freeze the meals so that they take up as little space as possible. I love having meals on hand that are ready to go or just need some sides added to them. I'd like to try to add in a couple hours of freezer cooking each week to make dinner prep go smoother. I'd had "host a meal exchange" on my 30 list, but didn't get around to it. But I hope to do that in the next month or so.


We had a family gathering to go to and I made my mom's Sunday Rolls. They are so good!


And I had a bit of dough left from the rolls, so I made it into cinnamon rolls for us to have for breakfast this weekend.
This week I hope to make our friend's amazing homemade spaghetti sauce and some delicious brownies.

Friday adventures

Friday Heather and I got together for our "2nd Annual pioneer woman cinnamon roll make and freeze fest". I just made that name up.

This year we decided to forgo the maple flavoring and use vanilla instead.


We now have delicious cinnamon rolls in our freezer ready to go for later this month. YUM!

The girls were a little wild during all of this.

But they looked cute in their matching pjs that we both picked up last year on clearance without knowing the other got them too.


Wild. "Don't take my picture mom! I'm in the middle of trying to do something you asked me not to do!" We went with it and had fun anyway. This is our season of life. :)


We also molded these birds out of clay to make these birds from a tutorial Heather had seen. We were both happy they actually look like birds as crafts I try many times don't work out.

Friday night we bundled up and headed out to dinner and the Orr Family Farm with Michael's parents.

Isabella checking out the goats with Daddy.


Isabella spots Santa.


Checking him out, but not sure.




I'd rather give him a high 5 than sit on his lap.

We went on a hay ride and a train ride around the farm.

They had the farm all decked out with lights for Christmas.


One thing to know is that the train & hay rides just run at certain times, so if you are particularly wanting to do one or the other go around that time, or you will have to wait. And your child will be VERY sleepy by the end. Thanks for a fun evening Nana and Cappy!