Monday, December 14, 2009

Sugar Plum Fantasies




Saturday, December 12, 2009

Oh and By the Way....

if you just don't think there's enough to read here, maybe I should enlighten you to a little secret..... we have 2 blogs...

check it out. It's full of good food.
Rough Lumber Blog

Fair Winning Sugar Cookies Analogy

Hey am I getting some mileage out of these sugar cookies or what? :)
Actually, If you watched the video below, you saw grandma, as the shaper, rolling the cookie dough around in her hands, and then passing the job on down the production line to the granddaughter, who was the official cookie-cutter.
Pause right there, come on back and give me your attention; Keep that visual picture on a post-it somewhere up there in your mind and follow me.

During our bible study this morning my wife and I tried something a little different. We both read from the same passage, wrote down our thoughts, and at the end decided after a few sips of Joe that we wanted to hear what eachother wrote.

Kari's journal was very gathered with pieced together tidbits of information from different commentaries and study notes, culling everything she'd learned into a finished cut of the knowledge she'd gleaned.

My journal was completely different. In her words, it's as if I'm writing a devotional to publish. There's the verse, and then what it means to me, how it relates to life experience, where it applies in this day.

I started laughing because it dawned on me that, just like in the video, in the body of Christ there are such different hands and feet, intended for very different purposes. I'm at the kitchen counter, pulling a giant lump of dough from the batch, forming that abstract into something manageable. A well rounded little ball of a story emerges...It may not be pretty, but it's just the right size for you to work with on your own, on your end of the line.
My wife is the cutter. She takes all of that knowledge, rolls it all flat and uniform, places her cookie-cutter just where she thinks it will make the best, most efficient punch through the dough, and then she presses out the information into this nicely patterned image. It's a finished product. It's unique to her, just like mine is original to me, and yet it's the same dough, just packaged differently for each of us. That's the living word of God.

But then came the best part. When we put the two together, we had an amazing study, together.

I highly recommend you try it. Make some philosophical cookies with your better half today and see if you like the taste.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Fair Winning Sugar Cookies Video

Fair Winning Sugar Cookies

My mom and my little girl hooked up last night to become an unstoppable duo in the kitchen. Using her great-great-great grandmother's "Fair Winning" sugar cookies (atleast that is what is scratched on the recipe), my little girl showed a new side of herself...
See, a true chef has to get down and dirty, literally, in the food. The flour on the nose and cheeks is a must. You must get down on the level with the food, eyeball to eyeball.
It's also all about taste, taste, taste, you see, so there must be time allotted to lick the frosting. :)
Also note the precision and careful consistency in the stirring of the frosting. It takes great care, not too hot, not too cool, with just the right centrifugal force to mix in the coloring at just the right degree of perfection.

The results: Finely crafted, hand made, handed-down-through-the-generations works of art :)














Disclaimer: Some sugar cookies were harmed in the making of this evening. 1 crazy oven and 1 distracted grandma trying to teach the 6-year-old the finer art equals a few slightly charred gingerbread men, shining stars and Christmas trees... the rest are in my tummy.

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

My Purple Cupcake











She told me to look for the purple cupcake, that'd be her.
"How will i know which one is you?"
"I'll be the purple one, but I'm not the only purple one."
"If you're not the only purple cupcake how will I tell you apart?"
"I'll be the only one giving the Love sign... I'm the only one that knows that."

Hmmm, ok. Well, we weren't supposed to take any pictures or video, and while I respected the rules, I still came to a point at the end, when she was bowing on stage for the last 30 seconds of the 3 minutes total of the 2 hour performance that she got to be on stage...my rebellion overruled...well, it's my little girl, and I just want 1 picture to remember what she looked like. How many practices, how many trips to town and back? 1 shot of her on the stage in her costume, I don't think that's asking too much.
She had tons of family to support her first-ever part in the Nutcracker, and loads of flowers to boot.

Friday, December 04, 2009

Changing of the Guard

Goodbye Fall. Hello Old Man...


Logan's 10th B-day Party

a few quick snapshots of the kids at the birthday party. I love how kids just wear their emotions on their faces. Total exhiliration, absolute fear from my little girl when she thought she was going to get flipped upside down on the waterslide, and then the looks on every kids face as my boy is about to blow out his candles on his ice cream cake...they are so excited it's like they are all blowing them out with him in their minds.








Bad Dad


some of you might think I have too much time on my hands to be posting this kind of fotter...i'd have to remind you that Halloween actually happened over a month ago...I'm just that far behind. It also happens to be my boy's birthday, so I guess I'm a bad dad?
Better late than never.