"As Thomas Edison says…"

Whenever I get frustrated at a failure of mine, (usually in cooking)

my dear, well-meaning husband says, 

"Eden, remember what Thomas Edison said when creating the lightbulb,

I haven't failed 10,000 times, I just found 10,000 ways it won't work.'"

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll try again.

---

So meet Happy, an rag doll that has been brewing in my head for 

quite some time, but I put off actually working on her till now.

Last week, while visiting family on spring break,

Little Pip and I had some one on one time,

so I took her to Hobby Lobby, where we searched and bargained 

for the materials I thought I would need to create this idea. 

Then we split a donut at a new little place in Joplin called Sweet Spot.

Their maple cake donut was delicious! Pip loved the red and white booths.

Back to doll, I decided this week to make this project a priority 

since the house was fairly clean and laundry was fairly caught up.

I made templates for the body, arms, and legs,

washed, iron, and cut the fabric.

Then I colored her hair, face, dress and shoes,

with these Pentel Pastel Dye Sticks. 

Her back was just a fun print fabric.

Today, I sewed and sewed, 

felt sweaty and teared up, 

sipped tea (to help me calm down)

sewed, and muttered, and sewed.

 I am pretty proud of this prototype.

Somethings didn't work out like I wanted,

somethings rubbed off, one leg is a bit longer than the other,

and her head is a little lumpy.

But as I showed her to my older daughters, they said,

"She's so beautiful!"

"Mom, you did a great job!"

"Can we play with her?"

And that felt great.

Then I remembered what my husband says that Edison said,

(good one hun!)

and I am super excited to get back to work, 

figure out the tweaks and changes I need to make 

so she can look better and be a little bit easier to sew.

I'll try again.

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.

The most certain way to succeed

 is always to try just one more time.

--Thomas Edison 

(quote found here)

    

the weekend I almost died getting donuts

Friday morning, sweet, sickly Sonora woke up to find snow

all over the ground, inches deep and still falling from the sky.

In her raspy voice, she squealed, "It's snowing! It must be my birthday!"

I reminded her that her birthday was after Christmas,

and she said, "So it's Christmas?"

and again, dashing her hopes I replied.

"No."

"Okay, so we are going to be flower girls today! Cordie-"

"No, your Aunt gets married in two weeks."

"So why did Jesus give us snow?"

"Jesus gave us snow so we could be home together,

play in it together, and enjoy this season together!"

And that is just what we did.

We also ate lots of warm, yummy food,
and drank our weight in coffee, cocoa and tea.
I left the house to pick up some donuts on Saturday morning,
and came to realize that our roads covered in ice, ice on ice,
which was quite scary.
But I drove 5 mph around the corner and back,
and for some reasons the donuts tasted so much better than usual.

We also made snowflakes for our house, 
and continued our Nativity story timeline.

Cordie is proud of her first snowflake

Sonora checks the stockings everyday

Pip's favorite spot and lately she likes to accessorize her outfits

What did you do this weekend?

sunshine and s'more cookies.

I smile so big when I think about this weekend.

So good.

We really needed that. 

The weather was perfect,

so we soaked up every ounce of sunshine we could.

 And as the sun set, we made a fire.

N was begging to roast big marshmallows,

but i didn't have any graham crackers!

OH NO!

Tell me, what good are roasted marshmallows

if you can't make s'mores?

(I may have been a little desperate for chocolate)

So, I created our s'more cookie!

S'more Cookies - Greer Style

What you'll need (I doubled this recipe to make the measurements easier) :

1/2 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/4 cup flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips 

(we love dark, you could use milk for a more authentic a'more flavor)

large roasting marshmallows

Cream butter and brown sugar.  Add egg and vanilla and mix well. 

Sift in dry ingredients and blend. Add chocolate chips.

Bake @ 350* for 7-10 minutes. While cookies are baking,

have a sweet little girl roast some marshmallows. Transfer marshmallow

to the top of the cookie and flatten (these are rrrreeaallyy gooey).

Enjoy with an ice cold bottle of root beer!

P.S. this happy happy girl got to go on a special lunch date with her wonderful daddy!

How was your weekend? Did you create/make something?