Of simple things.

We are in love with simple things.

Things like the bulby lights from our wedding, now strung across our apartment and the coupon inserts in our local paper.

We love waking up to a blanket of fresh snow, setting our coffee pot on timer, spooning for far too long before we get out of bed, hosting dinner parties, getting free coffee coupons in the mail, receiving letters, loving on our friends and sitting down to hot dinners together each night.

In the midst of schedules and meetings, we always want to pause, reflect and wonder.

What.a.beautiful.life.

Instagram and more.

As aforementioned it was a hectic weekend of Frosty Fest, Instagrams, Coffee (we Love getting FREE Starbucks drinks; thank you star system.), Snow Taffy Making and Wedding Showing. We love our lives, but we are maybe a bit tired too. Too bad we already used the free coffee coupon.

Snow taffy is a surprisingly messy business. I think I’ll retire.

Do we look worse for the wear?

We heart Jonathan Grime Photography, the best dang photographer around.

I’m going to be honest: I kind of expected to get a few contracts to make Aunt Dottie’s sugar cookies for a few weddings. Alas, I did not. (The baker beside our booth was a possible deterrent.) But they were still a raving success. Thank you A.D.

Long days of magic and music.

Speaking of music, we have a confession. it’s been hard for us to say this out loud, but we failed at our itunes challenge.

Please, a respectful moment.

Around day 12 we needed to take Jonathan’s computer in some updates and thusly ended all of our good intentions. Sigh.

Also: we recognize we’ve posted a ridiculous amount of sugar cookie photos on this blog.

There are a few reasons for this.

1. we love cookies.

2. we love sugar cookies.

3. we love baking/eating/sampling dough.

4. our friend jennie gave us her aunt dottie’s amazing sugar cookie recipe which we hope isn’t a family secret because we are going to share it with you now.

SUGAR COOKIES

2 cups of soft butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
2 Tbs vanilla
4 1/2 cups sifted flour

Cream together butter and sugar.  Add egg and vanilla.  Gradually add flour.  Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.  Roll out 1/4 of dough at a time to 1/8″ thickness.  Bake on parchment paper 6-9 minutes at 375.

I use powder sugar, milk and vanilla for the icing.  I don’t measure it….I just put in a little milk and vanilla at a time into the powdered sugar until it is the right consistency and taste.  I use Wilton food coloring and it takes very little to color it.  You can also freeze them if you want to make them this week.

W.o.n.d.e.r.f.u.l.

Since Jonathan Grime Photography is showcasing his work at a wedding show this weekend, we made some of these sweet treats to delight the masses.

Please duly admire this hot apron which was made by our friend Megan as a combination wedding/birthday/Christmas gift. =Yet one more reason to bake.

This weekend is non-stop…and that carries through next week. Nose to the grindstone, Grimes.  Love to you all.

“Mama’s old cheer”

Mama Bernice is doing her DTS in Tyler, Texas under the same AMAZING leader that Layne did her YWAM schools with, one Ken Patullo.

Layne opened her email this a.m. to find an email from Ken. He took the time to send her an update of Mama’s time in Texas, saying she is a gem and a great example for the

younger crowd. (We don’t think Mama actually realizes there is even an age difference.)

This week she did a cheer for her book report; this was after “rapping” her previous book report a couple of weeks ago-complete with outfit.

email from Bernice this a.m. “Ken said he sent you pics of my cheer book report?  I did Mama’s old cheer!  Love you – Your Mama”

Guess the Texas air is good for her soul.

Inspiration.

 “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” Anne Frank

“The universe is wider than our views of it.” Henry David Thoreau

“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in.” Greek proverb

“Whatever you would do, begin it. Boldness has courage, genius and magic in it.” Goethe

Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas, We Believe in New Years too….

We saved a couple of monetary birthday and Christmas gifts for “such a time as this.”

Jonathan has been aching to teach Laynie all his mad snowboarding skills for ages.

And the benefits of being self-employed met the budget of mid-week winter sport specials in one happy package for us this week.

Five minutes into lesson #1, Jonathan to Layne, “It’s okay that you can’t do what all the other kids are doing [literally there were a plethora of 5-year-olds whizzing past us on the hillside.] You just need to be patient and not be snippy with me.”

Turns out Layne isn’t the “natural” at snowboarding we all expected her to be.

We also ate dinner at a bright Mexican restaurant that is surely famous for “smallest portion sizes Ever” (at least in North America.)

Despite a few hunger pangs, (which we may have doctored with granola bars on the way home from the grocery store), WE ARE SO HAPPY. We hope you are too. Loves.

cuteness from Savannah.

We have the gift of having many artsy friends.

Here are some fun things Sav shared, that we will share with YOU.