Bring on the King Cake!

When Mark and I went to New Orleans for the weekend for the high school football finals, I bought some beignet mix b/c Katie always talks about how much she loves to get beignets when we go to New Orleans. I had been putting off (and putting off) making them b/c I thought either they would be a giant mess or a giant failure! So when she woke me up this morning, once again, begging for us to make them, I gave in, and, luckily they were neither too messy and they actually came out pretty darn good.

The recipie calls to cut then into 2 and a fourth inch squares once you roll out the dough, but I thought a cookie cutter would be easier. Strangely I couldn't find just a plain circle cutter or the right size cup to use, so we used a heart cutter. I thought the "Valentine" beignets came out pretty cute:

Here we are frying them up (that was my job):



Katie was the sugar duster:

Emma was the taster! (she actually helped Katie and I cut them too):

... and the final product:

Now I can see the girls asking for them every Sunday. (And we even made it to church this week!) My next mission is King Cake! Bon Appetite!

American Girl weekend in Dallas

This past weekend, the girls and I went to Plano to visit my sister and her family and (of course) visit the American Girl store in Dallas. This will be the 3rd time the girls have been, and it is so adorable. We did lots of other things like shop and eat out, but I only had my camera this one day.

Here's the girls with my niece Emily who actually passed down her American Girl doll to Katie for her "first" doll:




Here's proof that I went on the trip b/c I'm in no other photos:



Here's Nannie Jane (my sister), Emily , Katie and Emma before we leave:




We parked in a parking garage below the store, and when we came up, I thought this was going to be this amazing picture with the store in the background, and... well, it wasn't so great. Katie is also giving her "gangster" pose here, (nice):

Everyone outside the store (can you say "squint"):

Katie and Emma just got Felicity and Elizabeth for Christmas this year, and I think they are the most beautiful dolls. They are getting ready to be retired soon:

In the bathroom, they have the most adorable holders in the potty for your doll!

So the highlight of the trip was the tea at the bistro :




With the tea came an "arts and crafts" of sorts. We got to make hats for the dolls (and I do mean we ALL made hats). I love the concentration on Emma's face:

Elizabeth sports the most beautiful hat at the table (Missy's! - aka her "grandmother" - get it, since Emma is her "mom"):

Even Nannie Jane and Emily make hats:

Katie and Felicity:

This was a partially eaten tea tray at our table. We had tons of food and brought some home. There were little sandwiches, fruit kebobs, cupcakes, and brownies:

Katie and a tiny sandwich:

Emma and Elizabeth's tiny tea cup:

Elizabeth and her party outfit and snack and tea:

Felicity (notice the amazing fashion hat) with her snack and tea:

It was a blast. The girls never tire of visiting there.

We also got to swim at Jane's amazing rec center with indoor slides and a lazy river. I brought my camera there, but my battery had slipped out of it into my booksack at Jane's house, so I only took a few photos with my phone which I haven't downloaded yet. I'll try and do that this weekend.

Nutcracker ballet picture

Just got these in the mail today. Here's my little cook!

Christmas Night - part 2

Christmas night was at Nannie Kim's house this year, and we had a great time. Juju and Paw paw gave the girls kind of a "stocking" bag filled with little treats including this lovely teeth. Here Katie models hers:




... and Emma:



Here Emma shows my nephew Jason and his girlfriend Stephanie her new camera. Emma was totally in love with them that night.






Emma and Jason messing around:




Emma and Chad (my other nephew) were our "elves" that night and handed out the presents (a Weimer family tradition):

But the most fun of the night was dancing to our new Wii Michael Jackson game. Everyone including the grown ups took a turn at it. Here Katie and Juju "bust a move":

Katie and Emma, including Michael Jackson fedoras (not sure where those came from):

It was a great time! Happy holidays!

Christmas - part 1

Because I am the family photographer, I am in very few photos, which is fine, but every now and then I'd like a family photo of the whole family. So, Christmas Eve when we got dressed for church, I decided I might try the timer on my camera and get a picture of the four of us. So here is Katie and Emma in fron of the tree:

And here is the family photo:

Nice... huh? (I should have married a shorter man).

Then, Christmas morning, the girls were up at some INSANE hour, but I made them wait to open up anything. Finally around 7, then couldn't stand it any longer and we had to get up! Here they are opening some presents (I think this was one labeled to both of them):

Here we are with the grand prize from Santa. The Barbie house. Much nicer than the first place Mark and I lived in! Santa was very tired after putting this one together (....I would imagine).

The girls have really enjoyed playing with this one. We have a very Barbie house right now (poor Mark!)

The girls also got new American Girl dolls. These are so pretty. Katie got Felicity:

And Emma got her friend, Elizabeth.

These will be great when we visit Nannie Jane next month in Dallas and go to the American girl store there.

Didn't take too many pics of Mark b/c he was reading the book I got him, but here is one.

Jovi also got a stocking full of treats. Here she is with a new chew toy. Her favorite is one of those furry animals that you put an empty water bottle in. She loves it. I'll have to get a picture of that one:

And here is the sexy author of this blog with her new Rachael Ray cook book and her new one cup coffee maker. Mark and I have been using the coffee maker every afternoon. (maybe not so great for a coffee addict like myself!

Stay tuned for part 2 about Christmas night at Nannie Kim's house!

"Real" bowling

Since the Carroll's got a Wii 2 years ago, many people in my family consider themselves quite the bowling experts. Emma, for example can get a "Turkey" several times over. (A turkey, for you bowling novices is 3 strikes in a row - not like I knew that before Wii days!)

Anyway, I had always wanted to take them "real" bowling b/c since Katie has been at Northside, they always get these free passes for games over the school holidays. So right before Christmas, we decided to use these passes. It was quite fun, but slightly harder than the Wii!

Here, Emma takes a swing down the alley.



Funny story, the bowling places have the rails that you can raise for the younger bowlers. Well, in our lane, only one would go up (as you can see on the left) and it never went down. So even Mark and I got the benefit of the left side rail. And it came in handy!

Mark:


Katie:


Emma poses for a second:

Katie poses too:

My favorite part was Emma's "English" on the ball as it went down the lane. Hopefully it helped her ball to go straight!

This lovely picture of me is titled: "look who's in the lead now, um-hum"

The winner poses with the purple ball. I ended up beating Mark by one whole point! And guess who was the only one to get a strike during the game!

See you on the Wii!