Sugar cookies and peach jam

For V-Day, Betsy made the most delicious sugar cookies and we decorated them. Will had such a fun time doing it. If you look closely, he did the ones with all the swirls. I asked what he was spelling and he listed everyone's name in our family.

This is my beautiful mom and beautiful sister helping with the kids.

Here's another beautiful sister, though she really didn't want me to take her picture. She was a peach jam pro. She helped me skin all the peaches and then pour them into the jars.

When Clark came home and saw that I was struggling with mashing the peaches, he jumped right in and helped. First he used a biscuit cutter (the peaches were still pretty firm), then he used the blender. Last he used two long knives, as you can see in this picture.

I learned that you really should wait until your peaches are soft before you make jam. But, it was a great night and the jam tastes pretty good too.

This week

I caught Clark reading with the kids. Clark's the best!

Will and I wore red on Friday for Women's Heart Disease. What a cause!

Will's wearing Uncle Ryan's hat.

Now Rosie's wearing Uncle Ryan's hat.

We had Steph and Ryan over for a steak dinner. It was delish. (I think Steph was the only one ready for the picture.)

Leaning Tower of Laramie

When Clark's family was visiting, Clark, Jake and Will made an enormous snowman.

As the days got warmer, he started melting,

And melting,


And melting.

Eeek a mouse!

The other night I felt like rearranging furniture. We have some pretty worn out chairs in our front room and newer chairs in the back room so I decided I should switch them. I brought the two new chairs into the front room and picked up one of the older chairs from the back room. It wouldn't get through the doorway so I had to flip it over and turn it on its side to get it through. After I set it down, I was headed back to the front room when I found a mouse on the stair. A MOUSE!!! I gave a little squeal and Will came running in to see what it was. He was thrilled!

I said quickly, "Will don't touch the mouse." We went into the kitchen while I thought. "Surely, he must be dead because he's not trying to hide," I thought. I went back to look at him and he was breathing. Oh great. He's alive.

Clark was at his Computer Science Lab for another hour so I had to just hang out in my house with a breathing mouse on my stair (with Will who couldn't wait to touch him)! Clark eventually came home and I showed him the mouse. Without a word, he went outside and came back with a saw and a shovel. "A saw?" I asked. Clark said, "Yea, to cut his head off." I didn't understand why we had to cut his head off, couldn't we just toss him outside? Clark started laughing and said he was kidding. Phew! He brought the saw inside for a different project. Clark carefully shoveled the mouse and gently tossed him outside.

Now I'm paranoid. Where did the mouse come from? One of our chairs? If he came from our chair was it from the front room or back room?

What We've Been Up