Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Daddy's Little Cougar

Cam took these last night. :-)

(Excuse the not-so-clean inside of my closet...)



Go Cougars! :-)

Our Thanksgiving :-)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Since we have a big family dinner this Thursday, we decided to have our family Thanksgiving on Friday, November 16th, 2007. It was a lot of fun and my first real Thanksgiving prep. [With a working oven.]

Our menu was as follows [a little less than traditional, we made it to fit us!]:

Turkey
Mashed Pototes
Sweet Potatoes
Fried Green Beans & Onions
Rolls
Vegetable Appetizers
Caesar Salad
Hot Gravy
Whole-Berry Cranberry Sauce

Pumpkin Pie & Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies were served following dinner,
along with the traditional showing of "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving".

Notice only the veggie appetizers on Liv's plate...? *rolls eyes*

The famous olive-finger trick.
No Cole/Victor/[and now] Wagner Thanksgiving
would be right without it. ;-)

Behind Liv is her "placemat" from Nursery at church. Without contact paper though, we decided we would just give her chair a placemat.

Duncan popping a few olives during a game with Daddy.
:-O

Realizing you have another olive on your finger...?
Priceless. :-D



How cute is THAT?


We used my China, first time!, which was given to me by my Grandma Victor and belonged to both Grandma and Grandmother Belva [her mother], our Disney DVD Club free placecards [the kids were ECSTATIC!], and a nice musical woven cotton fabric for our table linen. [I knew having a fabric stash would come in handy one day... ;-)]

Duncan wasn't feeling well but other than that, all were fed and full of fun from our little Thanksgiving night. And you MUST write down this recipe, these cookies are to die for!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened [oops, I used regular, didn't even notice, so it works with reg and tastes GREAT!]
1 cup white sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup canned pumpkin puree [if you buy the big cans of pumpkin, one can will make one batch of these and one pumpkin pie.]
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. ground cloves [I didn't have ginger or cloves, I used allspice in replace of these two.]
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
2 cups (12-ounce bag) milk chocolate chips, not semisweet [we used what I had on hand, semisweet...]
cooking spray or shortening, if you're not using a non-stick pan, just grease however you normally would

Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease cookie sheets [unless non-stick].

Using a mixer, beat the butter until smooth. Beat in the white and brown sugars, a little at a time, until the mixture is light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs 1 at a time, then mix in the vanilla and pumpkin puree.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves. Slowly beat the flour mixture into the batter in thirds. Stir in the chips.

Scoop the cookie dough by heaping tablespoons onto the prepared or non-stick cookie sheets and back for 15-20 minutes, or until the cookies are browned around the edges. Remove the cookie sheets from the oven and let them rest for 2 minutes. Take cookies of of the pan and let cool on wire racks.

Cam added the chips, scooped them onto the sheets, and monitored the cooking while I was at work. Our oven is a gas oven and it only took ours 9-10 minutes to cook. So keep an eye on the first batch to find out your true cooking time. Makes 3 or more batches depending on your cookie size.

Enjoy! We love you all!

Thursday, November 15, 2007

CARS!

Can you tell he really LIKES this movie? We don't even have it and the kid is already glued. He watches the previews so intently, can't help but laugh.

[and can you tell someone is trying to get the attention of the camera in the background?]