Cookies, Kids, and Cooperation

Last Friday, some family members of mine baked up around 500 little cookies in about two hours at my sister Hope's two-oven kitchen. 

The children's contribution was to go play together nicely while we worked in the kitchen.

These women can work! I had the cookie dough ready to bake, and we had two assembly lines going at once.

I am so happy to have all this wonderful family to help me!

My sister Hope owns 10 cookie sheets and probably that many cooling racks. She can bake three cookie sheets at a time in her convection ovens. I find these things so amazing. I recently got a convection oven, but I would have never dared to try to bake three cookie sheets at once!

So many cookies! We will be sharing them at a very special family occasion coming up soon. It will surprise you all to learn that after all the cookies were baked and we were doing a little taste testing, I discovered that I had not forgotten the peanut butter cookie dough at home like I thought. No indeed, what I thought was the snickerdoodle dough was actually peanut butter, so we ended up with peanut butter cookies that got rolled in cinnamon sugar. We thought they tasted ok, if a bit unusual. So now I have to decide, whip up another batch of peanut butter, roll them in sugar and give them the traditional fork criss-cross, or go ahead and serve Peanut Butter Surprise cookies? Decisions, decisions.

I'm also thrilled that I was once again able to catch Jody looking beautiful while not posing for a picture.  She loves to see candid shots of herself. 

Here's the gang! Two sisters, one sister-in-law, four nieces (Faith not pictured), one nephew, four great-nieces, and one great-nephew helped make this a very fun and special day.

My wonderful sister Jean made beautiful chicken salad sandwiches for lunch.

We enjoyed it on Hope's patio. Poor Brenden. His mom assured him he would have so much fun with Hope's boys. Upon arrival, they learned Hope's boys were gone, headed to Canada to visit their sister. Oh well, says she, Jean's coming and so there's two more boys. Oops, Jean's boys were doing other things that day too. Oh well, Brenden seemed to have a good time anyway!

While we were eating, a very special guest (my brother Galen) happened to be passing by, so he stopped in hoping for a cookie or two.  He was delighted to partake of lunch as well as a few cookies.

And after lunch, Serena asked if we could turn the camera on ourselves and take a picture together. How fun! Oh, dear, I hope I'm not being a bad influence on her, leading her into a life of chronic selfie taking.

See the fly swatter photobombing behind us?!

We all had so much fun hanging out and working together. It reminded me of the great time I had with long-time friends working together last month at the wedding of my friend Candace's daughter. We had so much fun decorating, enjoying the wedding together and then helping clean up.  There's just something about the teamwork among people who love each other and are connected with either ties of family or friendship. It is an awesome thing, and I'm so glad I've been able to experience it these two times recently.  Some of these friends and family will be helping out with the upcoming wedding of Nick and Christina, and I look forward to more good times working together to make a great day for them! Thank you, thank you, thank you, I love you all!

Kam in August

I am so far behind in my goal to post my favorite pics of Kam in here once a month. (I take approximately half a million pics of him each month.) But look, it's September 1st and I am posting the ones for August! I have 11 minutes till bedtime, can I get it done?

Here's the first time I gave him pizza  that wasn't all cut up in tiny bits. What a happy, two-handed pizza eater!

 Kam is learning to eat with a spoon and bowl. As you can see, he's doing quite well. He can lick that bowl pretty clean!

He also feeds himself quite well from Nana's blueberry bushes and her strawberry plants.

And of course, he loves it when Aunt Stephie feeds him ice cream.

Lots of cousin activities this month, with two of my nieces and their families moving into our area.

My great-niece Heidi asked if there was any way to make him sit still so she could hold him longer, so we got out books.

 Sweet.

He loves to steal Papa's hat.

 We had some nice walks with the stroller. One evening we left the sidewalk and crossed the road to sit at the edge of a field and watch the sunset.

 Have I mentioned how delightful it is to be in the company of this little guy?

One of my all time favorites.

We took Kam to Green Peter for his first boat ride.

 
He loved it.

It's probably the first time there have been graham cracker crumbs in the boat.

He fell asleep on my lap while we were motoring along, and I passed his limp body off to his father.

Nick soon laid him down on the floor of the boat, where he sprawled out dead to the world. I kept checking to make sure he was breathing, because he was OUT!!!

I couldn't let the sun beat down on his little face.

 His Papa rigged up some shade for him. He had a nice long nap! Papa says he is a boat boy.

It was a beautiful day and a great time was had by all.

 We went to the park behind our house with cousins, and he was all over the place.

 He tried climbing the slide but wasn't able to get too far. How can he be big enough to do this already?!

 He and his little second-cousin Brody are so cute together.

And so are their mamas, Brittany and Christina.

And last but not least...

 Kam was introduced to a doll for the first time! He was briefly interested, but he quickly returned to playing with the cars and trucks!