mmm.mmm.good.

these ginger cookies are the epitome of autumn. they go so fast. as in, i have made two full batches in the past two days....

ginger cookies

1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup crisco

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon cloves

1/4 cup molasses

2 1/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

preheat oven to 375 degrees. cream butter, shortening, and sugar. add remaining ingredients. roll dough into balls and coat with coarse sugar (a must!). bake for about 10 minutes.

the springs BABY!

last week, i had the pleasure of visiting my best friend, jocelyn, in colorado springs. i was supposed to go a couple weeks earlier but because of my annoying pneumonia i had to postpone. so by the time i got there i was ready to party.

and by party i mean eating lots of good food. one of the musts while i was visiting was to eat at texas roadhouse. craig and i ate there every friday nite while we in college. the hot rolls with cinnamon butter are out of this world.

the babies were SO good the entire weekend. they put up with our running around to target, hobby lobby, gatherings and the outlets. see? i told you we partied.

jocelyn and sully. jocelyn and tagg. i will have to get the same picture with finn (yup, i am already counting on my next baby being a boy) so i can collect the whole set!

on thursday nite, we had jocelyn's friends over, reagan and kera, to watch the final episode of project runway. jocelyn made cookies for our guests. lets just say they didnt turn out.

wondering why this picture is so far away? because it was about the tenth time we had kindly asked brady to take our picture and i think he was done.

twinners. i had a great time in colorado springs. and i was very happy jocelyn was able to meet sully. hopefully it wont be too long before i see her mug again.....

tagg

the bean family

yesterday, i took some family portraits of the bean family. the weather was gorgeous!

and i have to say, that for four little kids, they did pretty darn well.

i love a good action shot!

halloween nite 2010

yup. tagg was a skeleton for the third year in a row. this year, we added the creepy make up. he loved it.

tagg had such a great time trick-or-treating with grace and casey (not pictured). what more could i boy ask for? getting free candy with his two idols...

oh yeah, and his third idol made an appearance that nite too! jack the skeleton. tagg was obsessed!

craig and i spent the whole nite following tagg around and trying to get my camera to take good shots in the dark. this was me practicing. that beard is a little out of control.

tagg. by then, looking more like heath-ledger-as-the-jokerish.

the candy snatchers.

before trick-or-treating, we had a great dinner with our family and friends. we brought pumpkin cupcakes to contribute.

sully, with my favorite costume ever. the picture doesnt do it justice.... its a perfect round ball. i love it. so much so, that he might be a pumpkin for the next three years too!

here. this shows the cuteness of the pumpkin ball a little better.

uncle geff and uncle david.

craig and me in front of the johnston's haunted house. tagg was really worried about me going inside..... and he should have been! it was downright scary.

carving a pumpkin

first, tagg helped me draw some pumpkin faces. then he chose the one he wanted.... the "scary" one.

then we carved it. talk about scary faces. tagg looks like he kills people.

better. i love spending one on one time with my first baby.

donut party 2010

last nite was our annual halloween donut party. we sure do miss the good old years at the cabin..... but my mom's house is the original venue so its good to be back. when tucker saw the invitations i made he said "pretty sure 'ghoulishly' isnt a word." always building people up, tuck!

tagg and sully, in their matching skeleton outfits.

once again, craig was a complete stud and put the ghost pumpkins together (in the freezing mist this year!). they are sooo much work (probably wouldnt be if we actually had it together and saved the stuff from the previous year...) but i love them.

honestly, after i decorated for the party i was depressed. i am kinda sick of my two tricks: streamers and pom-poms. also, tucker said "it looks like the pumpkin has an afro." (thanks again, tucker) i need to think of some new ways to decorate...

some invitations from previous years. the middle invitation, with the fuzzy spider, was from the donut party i threw ALL BY MYSELF in idaho, when we were in college. i cannot believe that i had the guts to do those donuts without my mom and megan.

i was busy with sully and dipping the donuts in the toppings so i didnt get any good party shots. but here's craig, tagg, jon, and tyler making the "witch's brew" (as tyler called it).

as my moms says, the donut party is like giving birth. its so traumatic that you swear you will never do it again and then after a while you forget and think "sure, its worth it". heres to hoping she forgets by next october!