Delicious Fall Colors

10/25/1940

On Monday Matt's mom, Barbra, will be celebrating her 70th birthday. I thought that instead of a usual cake it would be fun to give her a cookie bouquet with autum leaves and fall colors. I haven't ever decorated sugar cookies with royal icing before so this is my first attempt. I'm pleased with the way it turned out. It has been complete torture on Keegan to look at the cookies and not be able to eat them. One of the things I love about sugar cookies is the delicious butter cream frosting that melts in your mouth with the flaky cookie. However, butter cream frosting doesn't decorate like royal icing. Royal icing works best for decorating because it dries hard, but you lose some of that deliciousness. Keegan and Matt might disagree. Once they got to bite into one of these little beauties they didn't care if it was hard or soft frosting. It was a cookie and it was great. I guess a light finally turned on for me realizing that I could combine creativity and baking. I love it. Happy 70th Birthday Grandma Dallmann. We love you!

Check it out on TicketWeb - Blake Lewis featuring Savannah / Jessica Lerner / Shelby Marie at Hillsboro Stadium on 09/11/10

Check it out on TicketWeb - Blake Lewis featuring Savannah / Jessica Lerner / Shelby Marie at Hillsboro Stadium on 09/11/10

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I'm So Tired...

Tonight Keegan was sitting quietly at the counter coloring. Matt and I were watching a program on T.V. what we didn't realize is that Keegan was coloring himself. When we turned around to check on him he jumped off the chair and hid under the table. That is the clue that he is doing something that he shouldn't be. So when we finally talked him into coming out he displayed his brightly colored arms. When I asked him "Why did you color on yourself, is that naughty" Keegan replied by yawning really big and saying "Ahhh, I'm tired"Luckily it was washable markers. Silly kid.

On the boat

This has been the best weekend for us. We have had so much fun already and then today we got a phone call from Damon asking if we wanted to go boating. Fabulous! The kids haven't ever been on a boat and it has been a long time for me. The last time I went boating with Damon and family Abby was about 2 years old. I have to laugh remembering because she had just potty trained and had to go poop. Well there aren't many choices of what to do when you are on a boat so she sat on a bucket. Cracks me up remembering. Anyone reading this might not find it so hilarious, but this is my blog and my memory so I can write it if I want to.Anyway about today. Keegan was really excited. The scariest part for me was the drive there. I am terrified to drive highways and I have lived in Portland for 13 years and not once have I driven on Portland roads, until today. I was following Damon so it wasn't a matter of getting lost. But Brock rode with me and the kids and he had a GPS on his phone just incase we didn't missed a quick turn that Damon suddenly takes. His tail lights weren't working quite right and I couldn't tell when he was going to switch lanes or turn. We made it there fine and the boat ride was such a delite. The kids in their life jackets were so cute. We rode up the Willamete river and Keegan even got to drive. He loved it. Myles sat quietly most of the time and let the wind blow through his hair. Mason enjoyed sitting in the back of the boat shaded by an umbrella. Brock and Alec took a tube ride. Mason was secretly hoping they would fall off. Well they did fall off once at the very beginning and it is a good thing they were wearing their life jackets because the current was so strong that they were swimming and swimming and not moving. They finally figure out that swimming side ways could get them back to the tube. They rode that tube the rest of the way down the river. I don't know how many miles it was, but it was a lot. They both were worn out by the time we stopped the boat. All in all it was a fabulous day spent with a fabulous family. The sun was shining and everyone was smiling. We couldn't ask for more. We loved it.

Is that a horse?

Last night after Matt got off work we decided to take the kids to the Washington County Fair. Admission is free, so why not. We had fun walking around. Keegan loved seeing the animals. We went to look at the horses and found this little guy. We couldn't resist a picture. The funny thing is that our great dane Silver is about the same size. I am on a diet right now so walking through the fair and smelling all the delicious fair food was complete torture. Really at my age what to do you go the fair for but food. **Sigh** Oh those hand dipped corndogs and curley fries were calling for me. But I resisted and still enjoyed our time there. I happened to be wearing my Cure JM shirt last night as I was walking up to a booth some guy was looking at me and looking at me and in my head I was like "WHAT" finally he talked to me and said "is that a real disease?" Um, duh! So I happily stood there and told him about JM and invited him to the auction/dinner and benefit concert. But seriously guy, why would I make up a fake disease and put it on a shirt, again DUH! Keegan was tall enough for the rides this year but we didn't take him on any. Usually he says he wants to ride but then chickens out in the end. I didn't want to get stuck with tickets. So next year he is looking forward to the dragon kiddie roller coaster. We haven't been to a fair in years so we were happy to get the chance to go this year.

An evening at the beach

Since Matt started working in sales our family doesn't have much time to spend together. Matt and I work opposite days so that we can keep the kids home and not in daycare. Daycare cost is crazy expensive so for now we have to make this work. We like to try and find fun things to do when we have a few hours to spend together. Matt gets off around 4pm on Fridays and I have that day off with the kids. We wanted to something fun as a family so what can be more fun than a trip to the beach. Yes it is a long drive about 1.5 hrs. So it was a little after 6pm when we got there and it was a bit chilly. Ok quite a bit chilly. Luckily I grabbed jammie pants and jackets for the kids as I ran out the door because we were all dressed in shorts. None the less we had a fantastic time. The kids absolutely love playing at the beach. They rolled and crawled and dug and shoveled and ran and played and just had so much fun. We all took our shoes off and let our toes play in the sand. We packed a picnic dinner and tailgated. It was an awesome night and we loved being together.

Yummie Berries

Picking berries with Mommy

We have been out of the blogging world for quite some time. There has been alot that has happened over the last while. Some of it good, some of it sad, like Dustin's sudden death. We will miss him greatly. Some of it we just want to forget about. So I am not going to try and go back and remember everything and post on it. I am just going to move forward starting with today.Keegan is now 3.5 years old and Myles is almost 17 months. Today my co-worker Lynn invited us to go to her favorite berry farm to pick berries. We haven't ever done this before and thought it would be a good way to get the kids out of the house. Since I don't have a GPS I had to rely on mapquest to get me where we were suppose to be. As usual I got lost. But after some communication with Lynn by text we managed to find our way to Rowell Bros U-pick Farm. They had all kinds of berries to pick. I didn't know what to expect since I hadn't ever gone before. But the cost was only $1.25/lb and all the berries you wanted to eat along the way. We started out with the blueberries. They have a blueberry valley with rows and rows of bushes and the biggest tastiest blueberries. We filled our buckets and as you can see in the pictures the kids enjoyed eating handfuls at a time. I really wanted to get raspberries but the bushes had already been picked over and there weren't many to get so I just enjoyed a handful of them while we walked around. I found out later that there was a raspberry valley that I didn't know about. I guess we will do that next time. Keegan found a friendly worm to keep him entertained most of the time. Luckily we lost the worm somewhere along the way. Keegan had told me he was going to take it home as his new pet. Since I didn't get any raspberries I decided to get Marion berries. They are a bit more sour but they are delicious. Our total cost was $2.65. I think next time I will go equipped with bigger buckets.I made the mistake of taking the kids blankets in the wagon ride because it was a little chilly out and we were wearing shorts. The blankets got drug through the mud and dirt and berry squish all over them. We came home and the kids quickly laid down for a nap, so while they are sleeping I snuck out their blankets and they are getting a good wash. Here's to delicious summer desserts. Berries up!

Bumblebee

Carr Chevy