She's off to London

My middle daughter is heading to London to march w/ her high school band in the Queen's New Year's Day Parade.  Lots of planning, saving and fundraising went into this trip.  We are now in the home stretch. Does she have everything she needs? Does she have enough money (cash, debit card and pound)?  I'm sending my baby over the pond.

What you should know is until last year I had never been away from my kids for more than a weekend. So for our 25th Anniversary my husband took me to Key West for 2 full weeks. My over protective husband decided they could stay home by themselves. The man who sets bed time at 10 on most nights and curfew at 11 if they do go out. This shocked us all.  Helps that we have cops and teachers for neighbors.  All was fine and the house sans one big screen TV was intact. No, they didn't break it. We knew it was a matter of time since there was a 3 step ritual to turn it on.

The other two are headed to Key West for some fun in the sun with Grandma and Grandpa.

Today was a melt down day for us all. Every little thing set someone off.
Are all the girls packed? Do they have everything?  Medicine, swimsuits, winter coats, towels, rain gear.  Packing 3 kids for 2 totally different climates gets confusing. So glad they can pack themselves. We ran over the London check list while I did the youngest's hair. Then again while I was finishing up a last minute gift.

Only ran over the Key West check list once, we seem to have forgotten to pack towels. Tomorrow we will run over it again.
We all lived through he day made up and even helped each other get their stuff ready,  and are now in bed. Yes, we were all sent to bed at 10.

I am interested to see how tomorrow goes when  everyone has to say good by and go their separate ways.  The younger two are use to telling the older one by and only seeing her every few weeks since she's left for college.  I guess this will be a trial run for next year when the second one head off to school. The are close  thou they fight once in a while the are also friends.

Better sign off tomorrow's a big day.  I hate goodbyes.

Cookies w/ Cousins

The beginning of December has been relativity sane. Just a few parties and a couple of school activities.
This weekend was crazy. 5 gatherings in 3 days.  Open houses, Family Christmas celebrations a birthday party and cookies with cousin.

Cookies w/ cousins 9:30am on Sunday.  No this was not my idea. It just gets harder to schedule the more kids we have and the older ones going to college and then starting their own families.

To save me time the girls talked me into buying box gingerbread cookie mix.  Once home I decided it would not make enough so I made my favorite gingersnap recipe.   I formed it into a ball and put it in the fridge, and proceeded to make the box mix.  It was more the constancy of brownie mix. It says to refrigerate before rolling out the dough so I'm hopeful.  We have are 4th party to attend at 7:00, so I'll bake when we get home.

My youngest made a beautiful cake for my oldest daughters best friends b-day.  Her 1st baking job. Were all friends, were having a good time and stayed till after 10.  I decided to get up early Sunday and bake the cookies.  I've made 3 dozen Chocolate Chip cookies at 6 am in less then 30 mins. for school plenty of times.

This was not well thought out. After all you must roll out and cut gingerbread men.  I tape my rolling sheet to my table, flour it and my rolling pin and get the two bowls of dough out of the fridge. One is in a ball and one still looks, well, less than appetizing, there is no way it will roll out.  I have a couple of  pans with gingerbread forms in them, I'll just smoosh it into those.I took turns  rolling out and cutting 3 dozen lil men,  and smooshing  the other dough into the forms and baking them.  I take a quick shower while the second batch is in the oven.  I have 3 girls I can shower and wash my hair in less than 10 minutes.  The first batch of smooshed ones turned out really think more like bread than cookies.  I try less dough. still pretty thick, maybe if I just drop by spoonfuls it will spread into the forms themselves. Nope.  2 dozen rolled men and 18 formed ones I'm covered in flour (as is the dog, don't ask) and running out of time.  I wake up my the girls while the oldest is showering I have one smoosh (she was not impressed with the goo) and the rolling and cutting.
 5 dozen gingerbread men later we are ready to go. I swear some of them looked like they were going to run away.

 3 teenager girls and we were only running 5 minutes behind.  Off to pick up my sister and her kids to head to our cousins house to do cookies with 14 kids ages 3 months to 19 years.  My 19 year old held the baby and decorated a cookie for her.  14 kids, 4 moms and a dad (he is the oldest of the grandchildren and brought the 2 great grandchildren).  Since their is only one round table the kids decorate in shifts.  Younger kids decorated first w/ the older ones helping with getting and putting away cookies.

1 1/2 hours later with no injuries and only a few frosting mishaps we came home with some wonderfully decorated cookies and a few odd ones.  2 gingerbread men each missing a leg and decorated to look like it was bite off, complete with red frosting at the site of the injury. These were made by my oldest and youngest, at separate times not knowing the other had done it. I may have forgotten to mention my family has an odd since of humor.

The rest of the morning was spent cleaning, sewing and shopping for last minute gifts for Christmas w/ the in-laws at 2:00.  That is a whole other story.