Emily all Primmed and Trimmed

Emily's new haircut!! Thanks to Jen's amazing stylist friend.

I love my Donna

Sandy and her boys came to see me off the morning I left Louisiana. I love my Donna. 

And I got to relish in my birthday regalia one last time :). I'm such a lucky girl.

A Big Giant Cookie Jar of Love

Before I left Louisiana to head back to Austin, I bought a huge cookie jar and filled it full of my kids' favorite homemade cookies. YUM! When they eat one they can think of how much their mommy loves them.

Two favorite recipes:

Emily's Super Awesome Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
  1/2 cup butter, softened
  1/2 cup butter flavored shortening
  1 cup brown sugar, packed
  1/2 cup granulated sugar
  1 tsp baking soda
  2 eggs
  1 tsp vanilla
  2 1/2 cups flour
  1 bag of Ghirardelli semisweet chocolate chips

Directions
  1) cream together the butter, shortening and sugars. Add baking soda. If you're using unsalted butter, add 1/2 tsp salt here too.
  2) mix in eggs and vanilla.
  3) add flour, then chocolate chips.  I love adding nuts too.
  4) Bake at 375 degrees for 8 - 10 minutes. This is key here - don't over or under cook them. Keep an eye on the first pan and be sure to pull them our just as soon as the centers aren't shiny anymore and the edges are goldening up.


Emily's Super Awesome White Chocolate Chip Cookies
(same exact recipe, but substitute the chocolate chips with Ghirardelli classic white chips)

Enjoy ;)

Happy Birthday to me - again!

Elle showed me how to My wonderful mother in law gave me the best birthday present on my birthday! She taught me how to make her famous gumbo recipe. MMMmmm! It turned out SO yummy! I am so proud to know how to make it for myself here in Austin when I'm missing my Louisiana family and friends.

Elle even stepped in to help us cutting the onions just right. She actually did a really good job, with a butter knife to boot!

The entire day of my birthday I got to take it easy with my kids and my Voisin family. We just hung out at Sarah's house being with each other. Roland and Ellie fancied up Aunt Sandy.

Elle helped her grammy doll up too. Grammy said, "Elle came to help Grammy put on her make up almost every day that she slept over ... It was one of her favorite things to do with Grammy while she stayed in LA this summer :) . xoxoxo"

And she wasn't to be left out. Check out that long luxurious golden hair! 

Lyons and Jedi Warriors

My awesome friend Mandy, who I met while being her EFY counselor "couple" years back, lives in Katy. TX with her cutie husband and 4 kiddies. She dazzled us with a weekend visit and she and her kids (Emily, Kaia, Blake and Taylor) drove up Friday night and spent the night and played all day Saturday. Friday night we ate a yummy dinner then TONS of candy while watching Star Wars. Yes, that is what we call a prefect evening.

The next day we had planned some day trips to Zilker Park, the Childrens Museum, etc. But our kiddies were having such a blost just being together, we just hung around the house and visited while they played.

 

The favorite game was Star Wars where each kid was a Star Wars character and they ran around the house, inside and out, saving the Empire. Emily Lyon is quite possibly Elle's most favorite person in the world because opf her mad Jedi skills. She has since asked every friend she's encountered to play Star Wars, but to her greatest disappointment, no friend has measured up to her divine Emily.

Wazooooo's with Joseph

 Elle was invited to her good buddy Joseph's birthday party at Wazoos. She had so much fun running around and jumping with her friends. SOoo much fun!

HunterEve Picasso

Hunter spent a month learning about Picasso for her Wax Museum assignment. She researched his life, wrote a biography, created a time line poster, a scrapbook poster and and oral presentation. Then, she made a costume to dress like him and share her 1-minute oral presentation during the 4th grade's wax museum when all the 4th graders posed in the 4th grade hall dressed as their research subject. When the visitors to the wax museum would see their exhibit, they could push the student's on "button" and they would come to life and share their 1-minute oral presentation about their subject.

Hunter and I worked for hours and hours and days and days getting her project together. The night before all the finals items were due, we pulled an all-nighter. Poor little exhausted Huntie conked out just before 1AM. It was a good thing because she was so worn out and really needed her rest.