Goodbye to 2011--- sending the year out with a pan of brownies!

Oh what a pleasant way to send out the old year.....   

and bring in the new if I can keep my eyes open long enough?  

One more hour... one more hour....

Little Allegra came to spend the night with us!   We decided that she needed to learn to crack open eggs, so we hauled out a box of brownie mix, and let her have a go at it.    She did very very good and cracked them both into the bowl, and didn't drop in a single bit of the shells!  

 She was amazed at the gooey stuff on her fingers, and promptly wiped them on her towel/apron!  LOL


Next was the box of brownie mix.  We needed to do this baking thing fast, because the attention span of a two year old is pretty short.  No baking from scratch for these kiddos.   Opened the box and showed her the picture of what we were making, and let her shake in the powder into the bowl and cover up her eggs!  OH MY! WHAT HAPPENED TO HER EGGS?????   She was a bit upset when she could not see them anymore.

 Now she got to dump in the pre-measured cups of water and oil.  Carefully I helped with the pouring so it all went IN the bowl.   She was still concerned about where her eggs went.....

She carefully mixed round and round with her little red spoon... and soon found her eggs in the bottom!  We squished them all up and mixed them into the batter.   Soon it was ready to pour into the pan to bake, and she got the reward---- licking the spoon!!!

We make quite the team, dontcha think? 

A couple of Regular Betty Crockers!!!

We had originally planned a playdate with the other two cousins for the evening, but they were petereing out as much as this little pumpkin.  By 7pm she was yawning, and during her bath she was trying to lay down and sleep in the tub!   By 8pm after her bath she was fast asleep.   We will do some playdate time in the morning in town with Chelsea and Jameson who is sleeping over there.

Poor Heather and Jesse had planned a night out on the town, but Heather is now suffering from a sinus infection and they are staying home.   She still let Erin take Jameson for the night so she and Jesse could curl up in front of the tv and watch an all night marathon of some zombie shows or something.  LOL

We will bring both grandtots down to Green Bay in the morning before the Packer game starts at noon.   The roads are going to be bad and the winds gusting as high as 50mph, so we will leave early, take backroads and go slow.  "Precious Cargo" on board ya know.

Well, it's 11:30 and my Steveio is konking out there on the couch, and I am about all in here too.


I think in the morning, we will eat chocolate brownies for breakfast to ring in the New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

2012

Deck The Halls-- and a little kid face too

Friday after Thanksgiving, we didn't dare wander into any of the stores.  The chaos, mayhem and pepper spray stories are enough to keep us home.  Besides, little Chelsea needed someplace to go, because her day care was closed and Mommy had to work, and Daddy wanted to go hunting!  We said the little poor orphan could come and spend the day with us.

Sooo the bee bopper girl came here to our house, and she was immediately put to work helping her granfaddah Deck The Halls... he was putting up the lights and long streams of garland in swags on all of the decks, and then she was helping him to hang the BIG CIRCLE on the house!

It was very warm out, and all of our snow melted again (we are due for more this week)  Granmuddah had set the little one to filling the bird feeders and suet block boxes...  she took the stickers from the suet block packages and stuck one on each of the doggies backs!  I guess they needed to be "decorated" too?

It was quite exciting for the wee one to see a lit up circle (she knows her "shapes")  

and then to have granfaddah go up sooooo high and hang it on the house! 

Once the outside stuff was done, that silly Granfaddah brought his other ladder into the house and washed the big diamond window in the cathedral ceiling over the livingroom... and she was just so amazed how high he was up there.  She knows the "diamond" shape too, and that was quite exciting to her 22 month old mind.  She wanted to try to climb up the ladder too, but Granmuddah put the kabosh on that! That little monkey would have followed him right up to the top, I am sure! 

Once the cleaning and windowwashing and decorating was done, this wee one needed to give me a hand in the kitchen.  She knows how to crack eggs, so she got to do TWO of them into a brownie mix.  She poured in the ingredients herself, and she was busy stirring and of course:

TASTE TESTING !!!

She proudly announced that it was called "CHOD DOH DAT!" 

It was Finger Lickin Good....  she made sure we BOTH got some! 

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It is Sunday morning while I am posting this, and we are due to have all three of our kids, their spouses and all three grankiddos descend upon us for a family Thanksgiving today.  We pre-cooked the turkey yesterday, and have it ready to serve while it's steaming in chicken soup broth in a roasting pan, and pre-made all the extras too.  Sure was nice to have most of it done, just a few things to do this morning.  Which is very good, because yesterday I stumbled on a flagstone in the yard and twisted my foot on a funny angle.  It's not broken, but I iced it good and am hobbling around.  I am taking breaks and putting it up, so that is why I have time to write a blog post!    Will be sure to post tomorrow about our wonderful family day... right now we are watching that old RV show on RTN network called "Distant Roads" ....  some segments are older, some are newer, but it sure makes us hungry to hit the road ourselves soon!