Summer Lovin

What kind gesture can you do for your sweet husband who works outside all day in the heat? 

Make cookies, of course!

Simple Sugar Cookies

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup butter or margarine, softened 
• 1 egg
• 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
• 2  1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda

In a large bowl, mix sugar and butter.

Beat in egg and vanilla until light and fluffy.

Mix in flour and baking soda.

Divide dough into 2 halves. Shape each half into a roll about 1  1/2'' in diameter. Wrap each in wax paper and refrigerate for 1 hour or until chilled.

Preheat oven to 375*.

Unwrap rolls and cut into 1/4 inch slices.

Sprinkle each slice with a pinch of sugar. (Or sprinkles if you are a kid at heart!)

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges.

Eat and enjoy!

First you stir it.

  

Everybody takes a turn stirring.

Of course, then you have to taste it.
(Preston shared his cookies with the guys at work. I don't think he told them that a 3 year old and a 2 year old helped make them.)

After waiting and waiting and waiting you take the chilled dough out of the refrigerator and slice it into cookies.

And if you're smart, you add sprinkles!

See Kara? "Mom, I still have these two cookies in my hands but there's no more room!" 

Then, you devour them!

And, if you're smart, you have another.

We put icing on half of the cookies.  It was so hot outside (103*)  that the icing literally melted by the time we took them to Preston.

Another way to cool off at the end of a hot day is a frozen treat!  Yum! 

Lexi likes to say, "I a helper."

Lexi has a new book.  It's got about 10 different BEAR stories in it. Needless to say, it's become a favorite.

Honestly, I can not believe we are creeping up on her FOURTH birthday!?!

Lexi is going through a massive growth spurt right now. 

I sorted out her next size clothes/shoes right before we left for Nebraska on June 1.  She has already outgrown those shoes!  (These are her new shoes that she loves and doesn't want to take off.) Her cheeks are getting rounder and she's eating a ton these day, (and I really mean a TON, she already ate like a horse before!)

She is such a sweet little "mommy."

Doing bedtime devotions with Daddy.
(Yes, I noticed the rip in Lexi's pj's after I took the picture.)

I love catching them in tender moments like this.  Melts my heart. 

Somebody might have woken up too early.

But this somebody woke up cheerful!

I cut the girl's hair today.

(On a side note, when the girls help me clean, usually everything ends up piled on the couch's. Also, today is laundry day, so disregard everything in the background.)

To get them to sit still while I cut their hair I put them in front of a movie.

Works like a charm.

Kara. Before from the back.

Before from the side.

After 

After.

Lexi- Before from the back.  

Before- from the side.

After 

After

After

Maybe you didn't notice much change in Lexi's? In her 27 months of life I have NEVER officially cut her hair. I'm afraid to cut off all of her gorgeous curls (in case they don't come back.)  In the past I've trimmed up her bangs and cut out the "tangle" from the back, but I've never cut all of it.

Today, I finally cut it all.... and by that I mean, maybe a centimeter from all over.  :)