Cookies with Momma

Daniel sure gets excited when I make cookies. When he saw me getting the mixer ready this morning he pushed a chair over to the counter and climbed on up. I let him stir up the dry ingredients while I am mixing up the wet. There is nothing like baking cookies with my little man and snow falling down outside. Where did I put the Christmas decorations? :)

Note his little Starbucks apron. Momma wears one just like it when she makes coffee for people. :)

Into the sunset...

On Friday we decided to spend a little time outside. It was FREEZING cold but it was so great to be out in the fresh air. We bundled up and headed out. One of our favorite places to walk is the Chamber's Creek Trail. They recently put in a big playground which we are all very excited about.


We started the walk kind of late in the afternoon so the sun was going down. The sunset was gorgeous.
We saw maybe five trains go by on our walk which sure made Daniel a happy little guy. I really wish I had an updated camera for this picture.

Afterwards Rue took us to a Vietnamese Pho restaurant that he had discovered. A hot bowl of delicious Pho sure hit the spot after a walk in the cold.

Good job Daddy!

Rue decided to put a little plate over the power outlet in Daniel's room because, surprise surprise, Daniel thought it was fun to stick things in it.

Daniel wanted to help Daddy and Rue was more than happy to have his little helper join him. Rue is always ready to have Daniel with him when he is working on things around the house. He wants his little guy to know how to do these things when he grows up and his on his own. That's one of the many reasons why I love that man.

*GASP* Don't worry, about two halves of a millisecond after I took the picture I had grabbed the screwdriver out of his hand. Just one of the many reasons why we had to cover the outlet. :)

Here is a little video of Daniel helping Daddy. "Good job Daddy!" . Call me a puddle of mush on the floor. :)

Zombie Spiders!

I hate spiders. I hate zombies. Here's how the two became combined in my world.

There has been a spider living in the corner of my bathroom ceiling for a while now. I left him alone mainly because he stayed in that corner and I couldn't reach him to mush him with a tissue. He left me alone, I left him alone. It was a mutual agreement.

Well, one morning that spider was not in his specified corner. I soon discovered that he had violated the terms of our agreement and had traveled down from his corner close to the floor. Sorry dude, you must die. He was then mushed into a tissue and thrown in the garbage. Or so I thought!

Rewind a little bit. My hubby has been trying forever to get me to watch the show The Walking Dead. If you haven't already guessed, it's about zombies. As stated before I hate zombies. This is not just, "I think they are gross and would prefer not to watch them.". This is a loathing all out fear of them. I could watch 5 minutes of a zombie movie and have nightmares all night. No joke! I hate them.

Well, somehow my hubby got me hooked on The Walking Dead. The storyline is very intriguing. Too bad they can't just leave the zombies out. You know, just refer to them without actually showing them. Hey, I'd watch it. So my viewing of the show is pretty much me keeping my face behind the laptop during the zombie scenes. It works pretty good.

Fast forward back to the mushed spider. The next morning I was getting ready for work and who do I see? The spider. But he is no longer a normal spider. He is limping along with two of his legs broken, kind of swerving to and fro just like... a ZOMBIE! Now not only do I have a spider to deal with now I have a ZOMBIE spider. Two of the things I hate most in the world and now the two are combined. Dude, not cool! And before I could grab some tissue to try and re-mush him he limped his way under the bathroom door. I opened it and he was nowhere to be seen. Oh, great! Now I have a zombie spider on the loose going and turning all the other spiders in my house into zombie spiders!

Visitors beware, the Dannells' house has zombie spiders.

Totally real life...

For those who don't know my hubby works at Fred Meyer. In fact that is how we met. I worked at the Vista Optical inside the Fred Meyer store Rue was working at. He saw the cute little dispensing optician behind the counter, asked her out to coffee and the rest is history. :)

I came across this picture online and it sure made me giggle. It's now my profile picture on Facebook. :)

Daniel's new car...

My son pulled this empty basket out of the spare room the other day. He discovered that he is able to fit inside it, just barely. First it was his boat but then he decided it's his car and that is what is has remained. He sure keeps me giggling. :)

Highly recommended...

I sure have been enjoying my new Pioneer Woman cookbook. I bought it for myself for Christmas. Since I received it I have cooked four of the recipes from it and so far each one has been a hit! I am a gluten-free girl so a couple I have not been able to eat myself but my hubby sure liked them and that's good enough for me.

I have cooked her Meatloaf, Chicken Spaghetti (made with leftover holiday turkey), Perfect Pot Roast, and Simple, Perfect Chili. (Plus a bunch I have made off her website.) And I'm not done yet. I plan on cooking as many of the recipes in this book as I can.

She has a lot of beautiful pictures of ranch life in the cookbook which makes it an enjoyable book just to flip through even when you are not cooking.

Her newest cookbook comes out in March. I can't wait!



Yay for good food! :)

Why I love where I live...

If I had known this is what Mt. Rainier was going to look like this morning I would have packed Daniel in the car and found a good spot to see it. This is why I love living here! God is amazing! The picture is from this article from Komo News.

Lookie what I found...

I came across Norajane on Etsy today and I have to say I am in love with her stamps!! They are some of the cutest stamps I have ever seen!


I had to purchase a couple. They are really inexpensive and did I mention how cute they are!


I purchased the Tree Trio and the Deer Siblings.

The theme of the cards I create is "simply sweet". I am pretty
sure these stamps will help me with that theme. I can't wait to purchase more of her stamps. I will have a little preview up soon of what you will be able to find in my Etsy shop opening in March.

Norajane's pillows are pretty cute too. :)

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year everyone! I know this is a curious picture for a New Year's post but this is how I rang in the New Year, nice and serene. No big fireworks or champagne at my one woman party. (And I would much rather be wherever this picture is than in a huge crowd of people.) My hubby had to work last night and he works 3 to midnight (if not later), Daisy went to spend the night at my parents' and of course little Daniel (2 1/2 years) was in bed at his usual bedtime of 7pm. Even I did not stay up to midnight. I was up at 4:30 yesterday morning to go work my morning shift at Starbucks so needless to say staying up to midnight really didn't sound appealing. And it's really no secret that I am far from a party animal. I turn into mush about 7pm. I am happy morning person. Hence the ability be up around 4 in the morning and serve latte's to people. :)


The past year has been a very shaping one in my life. The Lord used some very difficult circumstances to cause me to rely on Him more and to teach me more obedience to His will for me as a wife and mom. I have to say it has been the toughest year of my life but at the same time I have found much more true peace and joy in my soul and I thank the Lord for that. I still have a long way to go but I know He is not through with me yet. I am looking forward to what the new year has in store.

I hope everyone had a fun and safe New Year's!!

Christmas...

I can't believe Christmas has come and gone already. We had a very lovely Christmas. We went to church in the morning and I have to say I kind of wish we had a church service every Christmas morning, it just fits. It was a very windy morning and at the end of the service the power went out but then came right back on. The power in our neighborhood is so sensitive that it goes out when someone sneezes. We pretty much expected it would be out when we got home and sure enough it was. We packed all the presents into the car and headed over to my parents'. Their power was still on and they have a wood stove which very much adds to the ambiance of Christmas. We opened presents and had Christmas dinner. Daniel, Daisy and I spent the night and Rue went home to sleep with the dog inside so she wouldn't have to spend the cold, windy night outside. The next morning was so nice. I woke up to Daniel's sweet little face staring at me. I got up and built a fire. Mom got up soon after and I made peppermint mochas for my dad and me. Mom made pancakes with her new Kitchenaide stand mixer (my dad surprised her with it for Christmas) and we just enjoyed a nice relaxing morning. I told mom that next year we needed to just plan on spending the night over there on Christmas whether the power goes out or not. She agreed with me. Our power had come back on some time in the middle of the night so Rue didn't freeze completely. :)


I think heading to Leavenworth at Christmas is becoming a tradition. We went up on Tuesday after Christmas. Leavenworth is a Bovarian Village nestled in the Cascades. It is always so nicely decorated for Christmas with Christmas music playing in the town square and of course there is SNOW! It was snowing when we got there and didn't stop the entire time we were there.



In the middle of town there is a little sledding hill. Rue sent Daniel down it. He was a little scared at first but by the time he reached me he had a huge smile on his face. Daisy went down a couple times too.

Rue pulled Daniel around on the sled. It was too cute!


We went to the Starbucks there and it was CROWDED! We heard someone say it was a 30 minute wait. We decided to find coffee somewhere else. We found a cute little bakery that had lattes and self-serve brewed coffee. It was quiet and cozy. I didn't get my Starbucks employee discount but that was okay. Daisy and Daniel shared a hot chocolate.



We looked around in the shops and then we ate dinner at the Munchen Haus. It's an outdoor grill that serves all kinds of kielbasas. They have outdoor fires and heating lamps. We found a nice dry table under a couple of heating lamps. Rue had been waiting all year to eat one of these kielbasas. Daniel was just as excited but he was more excited about the bun than the actual dog. In the picture of Daisy choosing her condiments you can see some steam. That is from a huge, steaming pot of SAUERKRAUT!! That's my favorite part of the meal. :) The Munchen Haus is such a great place to eat. The cold and the snow coming down with the heat from the heat lamps and the smell of woodsmoke from the fires and Christmas music playing just makes for some great atmosphere.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Pumpkin Patch...

My Gramma was up visiting from LA and on the 31st we headed up to a pumpkin patch in Buckley. The fall colors are beautiful up on the plateau this time of year.

The pumpkin patch we went to had a little petting farm with goats, a little cow, pigs, ducks, and turkeys. Daniel got to pick out his own little pumpkin.













Gramma, Mom, me and my little pumpkin. :)



It was pretty muddy. I'm glad I wore my Crocs. I love Daniel in his little goulashes.