Teaser Trailer For the Next Big Epic

Growing in 2011

Gabriel turns four!

WOW, 4 years old!  He is quite the cool kid if I say so myself. What does a Nana get for a 4 year old? I made him his own Magic Carpet! He loves to fly around to places on this earth that he knows and that he imagines on the small living room entry carpet. So I decided to make him his very own. After all he has proven to be a safe driver, he hasn't run into any planes, tall buildings or flocks of geese and he has pretty smooth landings. I think he could handle his own Magic Carpet. Here is a picture of it right after he unwrapped it. :)

Helmets

Gabe is all into helmets now. He watches bike riders and checks to see if they have helmets on. He has turned into the "helmet police".  At the pool he noticed that some swimmers were wearing swim caps and asked me why did they have "swimming helmet" on. He is just too cute.

Fish

                                                           "I want THAT one"!

                                                "No THAT one, with that tiny dot on it"
The staff at PETCO was so patient and understanding of him getting his special fish. Thanks PETCO!

                                                "Their names are, Speedy and Swimmer".

                                                                      "WOW"

Gabriel got fish!!!
He wanted a bowl of fish he told me. So off to PETCO in Eugene  to check out all the different fish. After looking long and hard for his special fish he spotted the two he wanted in a tank of "feeder fish".  Yes, you guessed it. The tank had about a thousand gold fish and he knew exactly with ones he wanted!

"That's the one, and that's the other one"," right there,... no there,... they move fast".
We had quite a day watching our fish when we got home. He is so proud of them. It was fish talk all day.

Nana is back to being able to type!! Cast is off!

Ahh, the joy of using both my hands to type. It sure has been a while since I posted, but since I broke my hand in Jan. I have not been able to post anything. And Gabriel and I have so much to share. This is my first day to post so I won't do much. Don't want to wear myself out.  But something to put out to the world, or my one follower, is the need for adjustable children chairs. You know the ones that us big guys use at our desks that have the lever that lets us go up and down. ( I know, kids are going to love this ),thats what I am looking for. Gabe will end up with a zillion chairs or stools as he grows if I don't find one. Give me a hollor if you see a kiddie one.
Another cool item is the new FRONTIER 85 car seat. My daughter just ordered 2 for the cars and I can't wait to get Gabe in it. It is one of the safest car seats around. You can read FRONTIER 85 reviews at Amazon.com.  Check em out folks.
Well, I need to give my hand a rest. Good to be back. Nana School Rocks!!
Nana Pat :)

The Making of the Cookies!

Cookie making day went well.  The kitchen survived a minor case of flour tossing along with fingers driving through flour dusted counters. It is amazing fun to play with flour on the counter! Go figure! I had forgotten all the really neat designs and games one can play while tracing your fingers in the flour.
The recipe we used for our cookie horses was a basic Sugar Cookie recipe that Gabriel's Mom used when she was young. In fact it still has all of her notes around the edges for her adaptations.
Recipe: 2/3 cup butter, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 teas. vanilla, 1 egg, 4 teas. milk, 2 C. flour, 1 1/2 teas. baking powder and 1/4 teas. salt.
Thats it folks, mix it all together, cool it for one hour and roll em, and pat em and bake em at 375 for 6 minutes!

Here are all our ingredients that Gabriel used and played with. ;)  

Gabriel's job was to mix the wet ingredients with the dry. He is so serious about his mixing skills. I think the tongue things helps in balancing the spoon hand.
While watching him mix, I realized that the bowl he was mixing with was my Grandmothers bowl from the early 40's.  Now he is using it!  His Great-Great Grandmother's mixing bowl. It is from a company that she collected kitchen ware from, it is called Jewel Tea. She would be proud.

Putting the egg in....this was so exciting to him.  He was careful in the pouring of it as the egg has a  jiggly movement to it and when it finally "plopped" in he made a little giggle. While he stirred the egg in he reminded me that this was a raw egg and that we cannot eat it. Yep, his Mama and Baba have taught him well.

OH, my gosh, that is also his Great, Great Grandmother's rolling pin. A lot of history going on here folks! As you can tell he has to bring his toys up to watch him.

Explaining to me how it is done.                                                           OK, I realize that our horse cookie cutter is not your typical cookie cutter and that it came out of his Play-Doh kit but it was the only horse cutter that we could find. Yes, we did wash the Play-Doh out before hand.

Pressing it down "just right". He told me "Nana, you have to push softly".  I did.

Ready to go in the oven.

We did it!!!!

Time to eat em.