TwiceToddlers Mom and the Snickerdoodle Incident(s)

I love Snicker doodle cookies. I only make them at Christmastime. This year, it took me not one, not two but three attempts at making these delicious cookies. A couple years ago, for a Christmas gift, the whole Hopkins family received a recipe book of all the homemade foods and desserts my Gramma and other family members make. In this recipe book are my Gramma's Snicker doodle Cookies. This recipe calls for one cup of shortening. I have never been a fan of shortening.

Well, I used it anyway. Did you know that shortening expires? Well, it does and boy did it make my first batch of Snicker doodle cookies taste disgusting. So, there went my first batch of Snicker doodle cookies, in the trash. So, for my second batch of Snicker doodle cookies, I decided not to use shortening and one cup of butter instead. Well, with that batch, I again let it "harden" in the refrigerator overnight. Did you know that shortening allows for the cookie dough to "harden"? Well, it does. The shortening actually has a purpose when baking. The next morning when I woke up, I turned on the oven and went to my refrigerator and took out the cookie dough. I moved off the plastic I have covering the dough, it looked kind of funny. In fact, it felt soft and fluffy. This is not how sugar cookie dough is supposed to feel. So, with a little frustration, I turned on the water at my kitchen sink and poured the dough down the sink drain. As it turns out, butter does not work as shortening is supposed to. That is when I took out the Nestle Sugar Cookie Dough my DH purchased for me two days earlier. So, here I go, attempting my third, and final round of Snicker doodle cookies.

On my final round of Snicker doodle Sugar Cookie's, I rolled them into tiny balls, the rolled them in the sugar/cinnamon mixture and placed then on the greased cookie sheets on my counter. Once the cookie sheets had nine to twelve cookie dough balls on them, I placed the cookie sheets in the oven. With anticipation, I waited to see if they would spread like they were supposed to in the oven.

Well, lo and behold, my third and final attempt at baking my Snicker doodle cookies was a success! Yeah...TwiceToddlers Mommy finally got it right.!!

Now, I will give some to my neighbors and bring some to the Christmas Eve dinner tonight..

Merry Christmas to all those "third time" bakers....

TwiceToddlers, Food Dye and Christmas Cookies

Tonight, after we ate dinner, I decided to frost sugar shaped cookies with my twins. I had already made the white frosting and just needed to add the green and red food dye, to individual bowls of white frosting. Once I did this, I had my twins take off their nice, pretty dresses and put on an Old Navy T instead. This ON T is what we use for crafts which are messy. Did I say messy?

Oh yes, food dye, especially green and red, are very messy and could possibly stain, forever. So, having my twins change into something for crafts, was a good thing. The one thing I did not do, which would have been good, was to place to cookies on the cookie sheet.

What did I do instead? I took the cookies off the cookie sheet, placed four cookies in front of my twins, a different colored bowl of frosting next to them with a spoon and showed them how to put the frosting on the cookies.

The frosting and all the color, was so messy....it seemed that last year when we did this, when they were 3, it was not as messy. This year, the colored frosting got all over my white breakfast table. It is a good thing the table was easily cleanable.

But, like the Mommy I am, I freaked out...just a little. Only because I could see the colored frosting getting all over my carpet, the chair and walls. Oh, the sprinkles, of all kinds, were finding their way on the floor as well.

As my twins were doing their cutest to frost and sprinkle their cookies, I was able to take some photos of them. They did look so cute and actually had fun...

Just remember, if you attempt this at home, make sure you have a cleaning eraser (which can be purchased 2 for a 1 at the Dollar Store). They work wonders in cleaning up colorful and sticky messes.

After we frosted the cookies and Mommy cleaned up the mess, my twins went into the family room and watched The Upside down Show. I followed them in their and asked them, "Did you have fun frosting the cookies, even though Mommy kinda freaked out?" They both said, "Yes we did."

Merry Christmas my family, friends and TBM blog readers...

Merry Christmas 2009 and Happy Cookie Making...

TwiceBabies Mom and PayPerPost

I have been, off and on, writing blog articles for PayPerPost. Well, for the first time in about a year, I go back to their website and see they have done an upgrade of sorts. So, even though my email address was still valid with PPP, I had to add my full name again and re-submit my blog address.

With all this complete, I still have to confirm my blog, this blog, is mine. I have been asked to copy and paste this sentence, "Why can't the confining upgrade grade the disorder?", into my blog post.

So, here is the above sentence and now I have to go back to PPP and claim this post and confirm this indeed my blog. Here's to hoping to making a little money again through PPP. They are a fun company to write for.

TwiceToddlers and Christmas Cookies

This afternoon, or tomorrow, my twins and Mommy (that is me), plan to take some cookies over to our neighbors across the street from us. This will be the first time we do this together. Well, actually it will be my first time giving cookies to my neighbors since moving to this home a couple years ago.

Don't you just love giving! I love giving, that is, when I am not forced to give from some other entity. Giving should always be from the heart, without any strings attached.

I hope my neighbors will enjoy their Christmas cookies and have a Merry Christmas this year.

My twins and Mommy made sugar Christmas cookies with the shapes of Christmas, then we frosted them and put sprinkles on them. I made snicker doodles, banana (pecan) breads and magic cookies bars (my favorite).

Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas the 2009 and Have a Happy and safe 2010 New Year!

TwiceToddlers and their Last Day of School in 2009

Today is my twins last day of school for 2009, I think. I know they have no more school after today. From looking at their December calendar on the back of their folder, it looks like they will not go back to school until January. Wow, what will Mommy do with them all day long?

Well, I have printed out some crafts to, hopefully ( and I stress the word hopefully), keep them occupied over the next week. If the weather is not extremely cold or rainy, I will have to let the go outside. They can play on their bikes, which was their birthday gift, play in their sand box and climb and play on their swing set with slide and play house.

Goodness, a week is a long time to be off of school. Daddy and Mommy will have to take them someplace to get out of the house. There is the cool Christmas park off the 5 freeway close to our home. We might have to take them there. They have fake snow and rides for the kids. The snow, if the weather cooperates, will be available until April, if I am not mistaken.

God Bless and have a Happy New Year!! 2010, here we come!!

TwiceToddlers and their Playdate

Oh, my twins had so much fun with their friends yesterday. It has been a long, long, long time since my girls have played with their friends from church. I mean, my girls see their friends every Sunday, but with school and so many other activities taking place in the Mommies lives, it is not easy for us to "connect".

Yesterday, my pastor's wife, with her kids, and our friend from church, and her kids, all came to my home. All our kids played in the house for a while, but because the weather was amazing, the boys wanted to go outside to play. Once the boys went outside, the girls followed. It was so nice seeing them all play together. All the kids were of different ages, 4-6 years old.

While the kids were outside playing, the Mommies, myself included, were inside talking, catching up on our lives and getting ready for our Christmas Play for Christmas Eve. We were looking at all the costumes for each of the children: Mary, Joseph, Wise Men, Shepherds and Angels. The Shepherd's each needed a Lamb, so I contributed the 6 I have for the play.

It was just a very nice time spending with my friend's. It is nice having a Mommy Play Date too. I love being able to talk to Mommies, I know, who are my age. LOL

God Bless and Merry Christmas!!

TwiceToddlers at their First School Play

A couple of weeks ago, my twins were in their first school play. It was a Christmas play called "A Disney Christmas". The play was real cute and had all the Disney characters in the beginning. Each student was dressed as a character. My twins were dressed as Tinkerbell. They looked just adorable with their costumes on and their hair in a bun, like Tink.

Now, this was my twins first play and they were non too happy. In fact, when they saw all the people in the audience, and could not see Mommy or Daddy, they began to cry. First, Twin "B" began to cry. They cutest thing is, while she was crying, she continued to do the motions with her teacher and classmates. I was laughing and sad for her at the same time. It was just precious.

At the end of the play, Twin "A" began to cry. I think this is because she saw Mommy and wanted to come down to me. Again, it was just precious, seeing only my twins crying because they did not like all the people watching them and then not being able to go see Mommy and Daddy.

Here is a small video of their first stage apearance. Actually, this is just sweet Twin "B" being the little trouper that she is. I could not get any video of Twin "A". In fact, Twin "A" was comforting Twin "B" since she was standing next to her.

With Bidazzled Bids, You are always a Winner!

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Bidazzled. All opinions are 100% mine.

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TwiceToddler Mommy uses RoC RETINAL CORREXION Deep Wrinkle Night Cream

Over the past serveral weeks, I have been trying out this new facial product for wrinkles at home. It is called RoC RETINAL CORREXION WRINKLE CREAM. I am part of this company called BuzzAgent. I am one of their agents so to speak.

Anyway, this wrinkle cream is amazing. It actually works. I can feel my skin tighten and the wrinkles on my forehead, cheeks and in my eye area are deminishing.

I gave a sample to my sister in law and one to my friend from church. I also gave away all the coupons which were given to me. Hopefully they are being used as this is a great product and it does not require a prescription either.

TwiceToddlers go see The Princess and the Frog

My 4 year old twins, myself and my hubby went to see this movie tonight. I had no idea it was going to be like this. I mean, since when did a movie trailer ever show what a film is really about? As soon as I heard the French accents, I knew the movie was set in Louisiana and there would be voodoo in it. I was not a happy camper and, well, I should have left. My twins were not sitting still, moving around and thank goodness the theatre only had about 35 people in it.

I was disgusted with the whole premise of the film. I did not like seeing the 'shadow people=demons' on the walls and in the air. In a way, the movie reminded me of Aladdin, but for some reason, Aladdin did not scare me in this way. I think it was because Robin Williams was the voice of the Genie. Prince Neveen did look like Aladdin, but He did not sound like him at all though. I wonder who Prince Neveen was created to look like.

No, the movie was not cute at all. I am only glad my twins were under five and will hopefully forget about this movie. Twin "A" did not like it and Twin "B" was not really paying attention. She kept talking to me and telling her she loved me and was kissing me. I think she was doing this to turn away from the movie. I do know the movie was too loud for them.

This was not a good Disney movie at all. I will give it a BIG THUMBS DOWN!!

TwiceToddlers and The Scissor Incident

On November 30, my twins and Mommy were completing their homework. For almost every homework assignment, they are learning to cut with scissors. On this day, after completing their homework, Mommy had not put the scissors away as I was hoping to do some more things with scissors.

Well, my twins had, Twin "B", to be more specific, decided to play with the scissors and cut her hair. Before I realized what she had done, I just saw the scissors in her and her sister's hands.

Looking closer, I said to Twin "B", "Are those bangs?" Well, they were and they just looked adorable on her. I had planned, in the past, to actually cut short bangs for my twins, but thought they would curl up. Well, as it turns out, the bangs are not curling up at all. In fact, both my twins look just precious with bangs. The bangs keep their hair out of their face as well. I love the bangs and will have to continue cutting the bangs to keep them short.

My twins have a friend from Sunday School who has bangs and as soon as they saw how cute they looked in the mirror, they said, "M***** has bangs." And I said, "Yes, she does"

God Bless my precious twins with their knowledge, health, growth and energy.

Amen!