BuRnt CooKiEs

little doll

2012-01-26T10:57:00.002-07:00

I just spent the last two hours looking at and editing photos of two little baby granddaughters. Today is a special day for one of them. To solve my dilemma of having too many photos for my blog posts about these babies, I decided to collage them. I love the way they turned out.

I was remembering the old days when we took a "roll of film" and had 24 or 36 photos per roll. We took the film to the photo store to be developed and waited for a week or more for it to come back. Of the 24 photos and it was just luck if a few turned out good. No chance of cropping or photo-shopping back then. As I sort through my 2400 Christmas pictures from five different cameras, I realize that the simple days are just plain over.

This cutie is four months old today! Here are a few photos from her first week and then on through Christmas and into the new year.

Suzie and Winston are so tickled with their little daughter, their little miracle baby. They relish every minute and every single thing about having a baby and appreciate the joy she is in their lives. Grammy and Grampa too.

She's a little doll. And, she's a good baby, something we don't take for granted in our family. She's good natured and easy going, but she also gets excited over little things like her little toys, is super smiley, and likes to play. A good mix of her mommy and daddy.

Love this baby!

can you believe this?

2012-01-03T22:53:00.014-07:00

The ONE THING that Pitt and Becky really wanted to do over their Christmas break was take little Emmett skiing for his first time. Emmett is two years and two months old - plus a few days. Pitt is a super-skier and Becky holds her own with him, so it's a natural that they want to get their kid on skis!

Beaver Mountain, where we all grew up skiing, (that's me in front of the lodge) HAD to be the place for the big event. But the reports of no snow and bad snow meant no skiing and kept them at one or the other parents' house all week.

Finally Saturday morning, New Year's Eve day, they got the news that it had snowed a few inches at Beaver. Perfect! They were pumped. Emmett didn't even know what was going on.

They invited us to go along. Wait a minute...I haven't skied for a couple of years and thought I was DONE WITH THAT, lol, Scott convinced me that he isn't done with skiing and where did I get the idea that I was...and we had to go.

I mean, it's Emmett's first time on skis - we couldn't miss it!

So we gathered our gear and made the forty minute trip to Beaver. It was clear and dry in Logan, and I wondered about the "snow," but as we got into the mountains the roads got slushy and snowy and soon flakes started to cover our car. That was a good sign. At Beaver, it was snowing a good storm.

Emmett was willing and so cute. They shoved his little feet into the ski boots and strapped those skis on and he just went along with it. I thought he'd fight the sunglasses and hat, but he kept them on the whole time. Pitt was AWESOME. He put little Emmett between his legs and held him all the way down the hill. Emmett felt the thrill of skiing, but didn't have to do the skiing. He laughed and smiled and so did everyone else - even the strangers that were watching.

We got to use the NEW Little Beaver lift. It's a nice fast lift; each chair seats three, with good cushions and safety bars. We shared a Little Beaver punch pass which saved cash for the kind of day we had.

It was most fun at the end of each run. At the bottom of the hill, Pitt would let go and let Emmett slowly glide to a stop...just to see how it felt. Emmett stayed upright and looked so dang cute "skiing."

On our third run, Emmett's cousin (Logan) and uncle (Pitt's brother-in-law Eric) joined the party. Little Logan is only four, and skis better than most kids twice his age. I couldn't believe how he led the group down the hill at a pretty good pace.

It was kind of funny watching Becky and Pitt snowplow all day on the bunny hill and both so excited about it.

Becky was so tickled to get videos. She was in front of or behind or to the side of the skiers most of the time with the video camera.

Imagine Pitt's muscle burn after four runs like this! Pitt was smart enouth to quit on a "high note" after FOUR runs. He had hoped for and planned for two good runs, but Emmett was still having fun so we went for four.

Last but not least, lunch in the lodge. Emmett earned it. We all rewarded ourselves with a Beaver Mountains lunch tradition: tater tots.

~ ice skating ~

2012-01-03T21:29:00.003-07:00

Brookelyn had a wish list for our family Christmas events this year, and top on the list was ice skating.

We've gone skating before on the day after Christmas, so we decided to do it again...right after our crazy family photo shoot with no photographer.

Speaking of crazy...

Scott and Bailee kept each other upright.

Brookelyn is getting more confident on the ice.

Enough that she has to help Grandpa sometimes.

Aaron was there too - teaching Carter how to skate.

As a bonus, we got to meet up with my Aunt Norma and her daughter (my cousin Jami) and son-in-law (David) and granddaughter (Liz) from California. That was extra special.

So glad Suzie could leave baby Lizzie and join Mike and Bailee on the ice.

My graceful family.

Scott and 3 1/2 -year-old Carter.

One of my favorite photos from Christmas...sisters helping sisters.

This one too!

Carter and baby Claire

She was so cute all bundled up.

Mike skating circles around Grammy.

Home for more photos.

Cute mom Aimee with their two youngest.

- under the tree -

2011-12-30T23:37:00.002-07:00

For the first time in a few years, Scott set up the 'electric train' that he still has from his childhood. Emmett loved watching the train go round and round the Christmas tree. It's true that the sound is quite hypnotic and calming.

[ spirit of giving ]

2011-12-30T23:09:00.003-07:00

Carter and Bailee were "bored" on the day after the day after Christmas - yes that would be Tuesday - so we pulled out the foam craft kits I'd been saving for just such a time.

They had fun decorating cute little foam trees and gingerbread men, and it kept them occupied for a good hour while their mom and dad packed the car to go home.

Then Carter got an idea. He excitedly told me that he was making his trees to give to Santa! And Santa would put them in his bag and take them to other little boys and girls so they would be happy! His cute voice was so enthusiastic and sincere.

His desire to share at age 3 1/2 was heart warming.

It was THE perfect ending to a wonderful Christmas.

~ together ~

2011-12-30T23:03:00.002-07:00

What can I say? These are do-it-yourself family photos taken on Dec. 26 with an auto timer and fingers crossed.

Christmas Day

2011-12-27T23:21:00.004-07:00

image by Susan Branch

Grammy and Carter after Christmas Day church.

Christmas Day dinner with cousins from both sides & a game that Scott found called Pallina.

My parents making a phone call to Japan to say Merry Christmas to my brother Gary and his family. Joy through the world!

ChRistmas TrAins

2011-12-24T13:02:00.002-07:00

We have some wonderful friends that invite the whole neighborhood to see their Christmas village and Christmas trains. Their porch and house are cutely decorated and going there is a party! We look forward to it every year.

tree topper

2011-12-19T08:46:00.002-07:00

We've decorated in stages this year as we've found time to work on the tree. Finally, last night after midnight, Mike put the star on the top.

Of course, we were rocking to the sounds of the Home Alone 2 soundtrack (it has to be Home Alone 2, which, by the way isn't available on iTunes anymore for some weird reason) - it's our tradition to listen to that CD while decorating the tree. Seriously, if you're in a grumpy mood, find your old copy of Home Alone 2 or do whatever it is the young people do to get it somewhere besides iTunes :)

sock party success!

2011-12-19T01:51:00.004-07:00

The family Christmas party / sock hop was a success!

The kids (and some adults) either wore Christmas socks when they came or put on the dollar-store extras we had in a basket by the door.

Aunt Patti's feet were elf-like!

The cousins from down south decorated their socks with ornaments and tinsel. They won the prize for best socks.

We played musical chairs (but called it a sock hop) with fun Christmas music from Becky's Ipod. The winners got to pick a prize (usually socks) from a big prize basket.

And we played "Name that Tune" but the participants had to play their tunes on their choice of instruments - violin, banjo, keyboard, trumpet, or ukelele.

Cousin Debbie had us all stumped with her tune.

The last game was called "Footsie." We sat in circle with no shoes on. The person in the center was blindfolded and had to find an assigned person (like their sister). Had to feel everyone’s feet to figure out where their sister was. It got funny as the kids ‘got it’ and started putting bare feet or watery feet in the guesser’s hands. I put a pair of big felt socks on one little cousen as her mom was searching for her feet, and the kids thought it was funny how we fooled her.

{ sock party }

2011-12-16T23:34:00.005-07:00

That thing that loomed in front of me for such a long time is here.
It's tomorrow.
The Raymond Family Christmas Party.
It's our year to be in charge.
That means I'm in charge, even though it's Scott's family.
He tries to help. Barely.
When he thinks of it.

I'm a big-time "theme-y" person. If I can think of a theme for something, I can then get the ideas flowing. This year I decided to have a "Christmas Stocking" theme for the party. When I sent the invitations, I asked everyone to wear Christmas socks to our Christmas Sock Hop.

I recruited Becky to help me figure out some games. We're playing a name-that-tune game and a game similar to a cake walk - only we're calling it the sock hop. I hope everyone will be in a festive mood and dance around in their stocking feet to some fun Christmas music. Scott and Mike will be thrilled. I picked up some cute sock-related prizes, and everyone will be a winner.

In November, I stumbled onto a whole display of cute little sock monkey toys at Kohls. I bought them to use as prizes for the kids. And little Christmas stockings with lotion in them for the women, and for the men, socks with McDonald's Happy Meals gift cards. The sock monkeys are the best.

I asked everyone to bring a pair of socks to donate to sub-for-Santa. It's a simple donation, but such a bright thing to help someone have a new pair of stockings.

I sent the invitations digitally - e-vites from punchbowl.com which is a good website with free invitations that are animated and have cute art. There are ads you have to put up with, but since it's all free, it's OK. I was proud of the family - most of them 'got' the whole online reply game and played it well - pretty soon I had a list of yes, no, and not respond. It made figuring out the numbers for the party much easier. Not to mention the time and money saved by not making paper invites. (I hope that last statement doesn't get me fired lol.)

The images for this post are from Martha Stewart.com and Southern Living.com. Just cuz I'm in the mood for socks!

done, done, and done

2011-12-14T20:13:00.011-07:00

I lifted this post right off the ADORNit blog. (I thought it was OK, since I'm the one who created the post and sighed a huge sigh of relief.)

I wrote most of the words for this project book and also made four pincushions and sewed a quilt. We've been so seasonally mixed up lately at work...we were sewing the heart projects through the Halloween season, writing the words over Thanksgiving, and editing while we planned Christmas. Our book is really very charming and accomplishes our goal of showing off the new ADORNit Happy Hearts fabric line. The book will accompany the fabrics when they arrive at quilt shops all over the world!

Here's what I wrote:

Did you hear that huge sigh of relief? Maybe you saw an extra sparkle in the sky because of the big smiles here at ADORNit. Why are we so happy? Well, we finished the Happy Hearts Pattern Book – a huge, love-filled project that we’ve been working on for the past six weeks.

This pattern book seems extra special because the projects are for Valentine’s Day – though any of them are adaptable to any time of year. Still, there’s something wonderful about the colors and sentiments that are related to Valentine’s. Sewing our quilts gave us happy hearts – the fabric just does that to you. You’ve got to love designer Carolee’s touch of folk art and smattering of hand-written sayings. And of course, hearts everywhere! This fabric collection is fun and easy to use for both quilting and crafting.

We can’t wait to share our pattern book with you! It should be arriving at your local quilt shop in a matter of weeks! Watch for it alongside the Happy Hearts Collection – 18 fabrics with ribbon (and paper!) to match.

We’ll be sharing more about the projects & products after Christmas.

{ babies in a row }

2011-12-11T01:20:00.003-07:00

This was an event to remember! Six little 'second cousins' were born within two months of each other. I managed to get them all together for a little photo shoot last month. It was comical to try to arrange them on the couch. None of them was at the sitting-up stage, so posing them was impossible; they just leaned and fell over onto each other. Oh, they were so darling. Almost as cute as the babies was the moms and grandparents looking on. I love how you can see them in the mirror.

I gave the photos to my mom (the great-grandmother of these babies) for her birthday, which is today. She's 82 years old today and in love with all these babies.

I have one sister and two brothers. Each of us had grandchildren born in between July and September. For me, two little granddaughters. Gary had a granddaughter, Merilee, a grandson, and Doug got twin grandsons - their first grandchildren! So in our group shot, there are three girls and three boys. Their parents, of course, are first cousins. There had to be a photo!

The idea came to me when I saw these little baby pj's at the store...the red and white stripes are cute enough, but those reindeer faces on the bottoms and on the feet...irresistible! How fun it would be to dress the babies in the pj's and take their pictures together.

I didn't think we could pull it off. But everyone was able to come - some traveling a long distance to be here for the photo. Look at how the oldest baby was just far enough along in his development to hold up his cute little head in this shot.

I knew the little girls' moms would want their pj's to be feminine, so I got red dot grosgrain ribbon and Aimee and Brookelyn helped my sew bows onto the reindeer heads on the bottoms and the feet. It did the trick - they were adorable!

I love this picture of all the families gathered and waiting for the photo shoot to start. And I have to thank and compliment Arika Averett, our wonderful photographer. She did a great job!

* all is bright *

2011-12-06T07:46:00.004-07:00

Seriously, Anthropologie never ceases to amaze me.

This past week we (me, Becky and Aimee) took a little girls' trip that expanded to a family weekend in Las Vegas with Suzie, Winston, and baby Lizzie. On top of a fabulous three days of shopping and laughing, we had a wonderful Sunday with Lizzie's baby blessing and family dinner after. More about that when I get my photos uploaded.

On Thursday we started our shopping marathon (pushing Suzie's little shopping- champ baby in the stroller) at the Galleria Mall in Henderson.

We continued on to Town Square for more shopping and the best giant baked potato ever at Claim Jumper restaurant.

Some of you will appreciate when I say we also stopped in and lost all track of time and place at H&M! That store, whoa.

Fueled by the carbs and sugar from lunch, we decided to top off the day with an evening stroll through the stores at Town Square Mall where all was bright - especially Anthropologie. That place is almost overwhelming. I visited the website this morning just for the memories lol.

` hanging out on noRth main `

2011-11-23T00:04:00.005-07:00

I'm counting my blessings, and one of them is that Kneaders Bakery came to town!

We were there on the day they opened their doors (it's been about a month now). I love their cream cheese brownies and...everything else. I only let myself go there about once every ten days.

Scott likes the loaves of cinnamon roll bread and the cookies. Mostly he just puts up with me liking the place. He doesn't really "get" the appeal of the decor items that I love to look at while we stand in line. I guess it's a shopping thing.

getting ideas for 'giving thanks' table decor

2011-11-21T23:49:00.005-07:00

Nice "monogram" candles and deep, rich colors. Notice that it says Thanksgiving backwards.

I'm going to dig out my pewter platter & bowl. Pewter is kinda 70's and kinda timeless.

I've never seen photos arranged into the centerpiece - but it could be nice if they were copies and not the real thing.

I love the armoire in the background. Probably cuz it's blue.

I'm liking that wire stand and I'm glad I found this picture because I have a tiered platter that I need to get out for Thanksgiving Day.

I've noticed that cross stitch is showing up here and there - it had kind of faded as a popular hobby, but now it's back. This cross stitch is done with a glass-safe marker.

Love, love the black in this photo...even more than my black turtleneck and black pants.

Why not set my table out in the green field behind my house? Oh, because it's white.

I just simply love the brown and white china. That's all.

And last but not least...a place for the kids.

Note to marthastewart.com - the cushions on the kids' chairs are a bad idea.

{ lovely days here }

2011-11-19T18:02:00.007-07:00

we had some wonderful times last week - we really packed the few days that suzie and baby were here and got to visit with relatives on both sides of the family

aaron and aimee gather around the stroller to welcome suzie and baby

aaron is the best dad - he spent the whole day at a dance concert with his girls

becky & mike 'posing' for my camera

emmett, age two, found the baby swing and had to try it out

we went to scott's office to visit his sisters who work for him - here's aunt mary and a costume she's making for a production of "Christmas Carol" showing at SVHS next week

lovely women all

suzie and bergen - cute cousins

bailee and sophie - cute second cousins

these are the 'older kids' now, and hungry hungry hippos is the game of the day

and the 'even older' kids played an awesome game of rumicub

gorgeous aimee and her little claire - only three months old, but growing too fast

a

my sister and brother with doug's first grandsons - twins!
(in december I will tell the story of the stripe jammies)

:: some lovely days ::

2011-11-17T07:47:00.007-07:00

Oh, we've had some lovely times lately and made memories to brighten any dreary day. When I get my photos ready to post, I'll share. For today, I want to show some pretty art that came in a daily email I receive. The artist is Stephanie Ackerman - she's a doodle artist - and her blog (which is a visual feast when you visit it) is called Homegrown Hospitality.

This little bird was featured on the Brave Girls Club's daily email - they always include artwork of someone's rendition of a bird with their inspirational e-note. And they link the art to the artist's blog allowing hundreds of women each year to get exposure and recognition for what they do.

And this "how to live life" poster is a Thanksgiving reminder and English lesson all rolled into one.

The lesson is about adverbs; I know how important this is to everyone today!

Adverb

An adverb is a word that modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. Adverbs generally answer one of four questions: how, when, where, or to what extent.

Adding the suffix -ly to an adjective commonly turns the word into an adverb.

Examples: He ran fast. (how)

He responded immediately. (when)

He put it there. (where)

He became extremely happy. (to what extent, modifies adjective)

This from Debbie - we DO need to pay attention to this because we are starting to slip in our correct adverb usage. Once you're aware of it, you'll realize that the -ly is dropping off adverbs everywhere. Adverbs don't always end in -ly, but often do.

11.11.11.11.11.11

2011-11-11T23:46:00.004-07:00

It's Veteran's Day and my favorite part was seeing the flags lining the streets of our neighborhood. The flags looked beautiful as they fluttered in the cool breeze and were framed by golden trees in the background.

It was also an date that only happens once in a hundred years. We got our photos of Nov. 11th at eleven minutes after 11 o'clock. Scott was at work and told his patient that he had to go take the picture and the patient followed him into his office to watch. Scott's sister Mary who works for him was the photographer. (Mary just got home from watching her son and his fiancee run the New York Marathon!)

I was home and had my camera all set up to take a self-timer photo. I decided to hurry and put on lipstick and somehow took too long and it was 11:12 when I got back to the clock. I was so mad - but then realized I had another chance. Tonight Scott took the picture and made sure even the second hand was on 11.