first days of winter

Posted on December 23rd, 2015 by mountain girl  |  5 Comments »

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Yesterday we got an unexpected little snow to celebrate the beginning of winter.

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I gave chocolate chip cookies in the mountains another try–but the altitude obviously hasn’t changed lately. We affectionately dubbed them “waffle cookies” and scarfed them all.

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Zia is helping me make that messenger bag she wanted from Oliver + s.Ā  We made a girl-only trip out for lunch and to the fabric store, and she picked out a hot pink vinyl for the exterior, zebra fabric for the lining, and four fancy appliques to decorate it. She’s a conservative one, that girl.

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The kids and I made snowflakes–I finally looked up some tutorials and learned how it’s actually done. Our snowflakes no longer come out square, LOL.

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This is the first time Caleb is spending his winter break with us. I made him a stocking and hung it up with Zia’s and Cash’s, and when he saw it, he immediately took it took down and tried it on. šŸ™‚ It fits great.

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He actually has a slightly better pair of footwear, though…

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We wanted to buy him a pair of cowboy boots, and he picked out these sweet black ones with python skin inlays.

Cash wanted a soap Spider-Man, so I carved a face and we painted it.

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I ordered a skirt from Thailand and it was supposed to be here by the end of January. It came yesterday! Pics to come, later.

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It feels good to have passed the shortest day of the year, and I’m really looking forward to watching the days grow longer.

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Happy first days of winter!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2015 at 8:39 am and is filed under Celebrating, Cooking, Crafts for Kids, General, Making Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

5 Responses to “first days of winter”

  1. Jennifer Miller says on December 24th, 2015 at 8:34 am :

    Your snowflakes are so cool looking. Let me ask my mom for the ratio’s for baking at altitude. I don’t remember them. That was my chore growing up was to make cookies for the up coming weeks lunches.

  2. mountain girl says on December 24th, 2015 at 9:15 am :

    Thanks, Jennifer–if I could find a cookie recipe that works at this altitude (92000 ft) that would be great! I did some altitude substitutions for a while, but we kept getting “cakey” cookies–nice and tall, but not with that nice chewy-gooey texture. I haven’t given up hope yet, though. šŸ™‚

  3. Granny says on December 27th, 2015 at 7:06 pm :

    Actually those cookies look pretty yummy. I love thos boots, Caleb. They are awesome. Looking forward to seeing pics of your new skirt Mia.

  4. Lauryn says on March 14th, 2016 at 7:57 pm :

    Hi Mia! I know this is a post from a long time ago but every once in awhile it’s fun to go back through and look at all the picture and stuff. You might not even see this. But i wanted to let you know that when ever my sister and i bake we add a little milk to the recipe and turn up the temperature up about 20 degrees. It doesn’t always work but every once in awhile we get a perfect batch.:)

  5. mountain girl says on March 14th, 2016 at 8:15 pm :

    Hi Lauryn!
    Thanks for the tip! Once in a while the substitutions do come out right–I just baked a (gluten-free) white cake and it came out really perfect (although we haven’t tasted it yet–it’s in the freezer for Zia’s school birthday celebration). I would be super happy to get a good batch of choc. chip cookies to come out right–I’ll remember the milk & temp adjustments. šŸ™‚