g @ the helm

since this post* of mckenna's, grant has been taking a lot more pictures. i decided that i'd post them, because some of them are absolutely hilarious. i will go in chronological order. these first two were taken last saturday:

hazel is such a girly-girl sometimes. she was very specific about wanting her toenails to be pink and purple. next up is after lucy woke up from her nap on sunday (?):

grant thought that she looked especially cute with her 'just woke from deep sleep' face. this one is from this morning. grant clipped hazel's hair out of her face so she could eat her yogurt and he decided it was picture worthy:

i have to agree. plus, look at her little deltoid muscle! now these next ones make me crack up. hazel loves to have her hands and feet traced whenever she is coloring:

she asked grant this morning to trace her eyes:

i love this picture! she is such a funny kid. i really don't know where she comes up with these things, but i hope she keeps 'em coming. and finally, we have lucy eating an apple slice. i'm not sure why grant took these, i found them when i loaded the others onto the computer and since he's off to french class, i can't ask him. my guess is that he was trying to capture her pained face from the tartness of the apple:

*in case, my dear readers, you are wondering why i keep posting a link to mckenna's blog, let me explain. first, she is a great read and that is a beautiful post, and second, she's giving away something i want to win. i hope that cleared things up for you.

monday night flashback #16

i bet you've all been desolate without the monday night flashback for the past few weeks. i'm not really sure what happened. the end of grant's second semester was really, really stressful, which is partly why he hasn't contributed an mnf for almost 2 months. i picked up the slack for a month and then i guess i just ran out of ideas. but never fear, mnf's are back. yesterday, i was in the middle of making these delicious sweet rolls and i realized what a great mnf this would make. my mom used to make these as after school treats, not everyday but fairly often and those were good days. a couple of years ago, i got the recipe off of her and now i will share it with you:

mom's sweet rolls

dough

sift together:

2 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1 cup nonfat powdered milk

1 cup mashed potato flakes

1 cup sugar

2 tsp salt

add:

2 eggs

1/2 cup (one stick) butter, melted

3 1/2 cups warm water

mix together until smooth, then add:

2 tbsp instant yeast

5-7 1/2 cups of all purpose flour (add enough flour to make dough workable)

knead for 5-8 minutes and let dough rest for 5 minutes on an oiled counter. divide dough into two equal pieces. take one half and roll out into a 15x18 inch rectangle, 3/8 to 1/2 inch thick.

filling

spread dough with 2 tbsp softened butter:in a blender, mix 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup sugar and 1-2 tbsp cinnamon, until powdery:sprinkle half onto buttered dough:roll the dough jelly-roll style (the long side):pinch edges to seal:using a long piece of thread, cut roll into 1 1/4 inch slices:now you have two options. you can place slices in greased pan. let rise 30-40 minutes and bake at 350°F for 15-20 minutes. or you could place the slices on a cookies sheet and freeze. once frozen, put them into a freezer bag and leave until you want a treat. when preparing frozen sweet rolls, let them thaw and rise, then proceed the same as above. let rolls cool completely before frosting:

icing

combine:

3 tbs butter, softened

2 cups powdered sugar

1/2 tsp almond or vanilla extract (i usually use almond)

3-4 tbsp milk or cream

kids are funny things

when hazel's not prophesying the second coming, she has been on the hunt for the 'pirate-monster':who or what that is, we're not sure, but she seems determined. lucy is hazel's faithful sidekick. that job must be tiring for her since she's able to sleep like this:

@ the museum with gwanma

i'm sorry. i tried to narrow down the pictures for this post, but i couldn't do it. we went to the children's museum of houston and can i tell you how awesome that place is? it's amazing. i have taken the girls twice before, but only during the free thursday night hours when they shut up over half of the displays. it was still fun, but only a small taste of the full glory. so without any further ado, the pictures:

grant made us all try on this silly hat.

it was so cute, at most of the stations there were dress up clothes. here it was the construction hat, apron and gloves, there were lab coats (for the scientists) and suit coats (for the bankers) and smocks (for the artists) in various locations. hazel wouldn't try on the other things.this phone booth had vacuum tubes that sent ping pong balls to another phone booth. grant had a lot of fun with this. so much fun, in fact, that he jammed the tubes:next up was the mustang. hazel was playing with all of the dials.

this place was the coolest. it's a little city. there are atm's, a bank, city hall, a diner, police/fire/ambulance station:

a grocery store:

i finally convinced grant to get a part time job so i could go shopping. the grocery store was easily the biggest hit for hazel:

she walked around filling her basket with fruits and vegetables (i didn't know she was such a health nut). she also picked up one oyster, but decided against the lobster after giving it a hard look:

she was pretty good about leaving the store and even helped put her things back into the proper containers. the next stop in kidtopia, or whatever the city was called, was the art studio:

grant helped hazel do a beautiful rendition of a squirrel:

bidding will begin at $75,000. now, i'm going to tell you guys something that may shock you, lucy did not spend the whole time in the stroller:

she hung out with grandma for most of the time and then we found the totspot:

lucy was able to crawl around to her hearts content and hazel enjoyed it too. we ended the trip with a visit outside to the water display:

it was a very fun morning and since we only made it through about 1/2 of the museum, next time we plan on devoting a whole day to it.

of playdough, peek-a-boo & parks

here's another super long post. enjoy it.

i've been promising hazel that i would make her some playdough and finally, yesterday i did. she requested 'purpool' playdough. she had lots of fun squishing it and making shapes with it.

while hazel was rolling, squishing and creating, lucy was playing peek-a-boo:

that evening, we took grandma to the houston arboretum and nature center:

we saw more animals this time. lots of squirrels, some turtles and dragonflies:
and this heron (i know this is the worst picture ever, but it was a cool bird):
hazel demonstrated her strength:

and i tried to get a picture of the girls together. they turned out pretty good, but the sun was kind of strong:

and finally, this morning we went to the bayou bends garden. it's a house and garden that was donated to the museum of fine arts of houston by ima hogg. it was very nice but slightly disappointing since none of the flowers were in bloom.