We are making PROGRESS! Will and I have cleaned out about a third of our garage. Wait, I didn’t tell you this story?! So… after the Tesla roof and power walls were installed, we got a call saying that the laws on power storage in MA changed (that day) and that in order to pass inspection we’d have to have our entire garage dry walled. What. This meant we’d have to take down all the shelves, hanging stuff and the climbing wall so they could finish the entire thing. Gah. On top of this, we’d moved our entire basement upstairs into the garage so the basement contractors could start on that. If you can imagine our garage is/was completely full of junk so we haven’t been able to put cars in the garage for the last 6 months…
Motivating yourself to move things is difficult. It was getting so discouraging looking at the intricate puzzle of stuff that we’d created in the garage. But this weekend I took a big step – I re-put up the climbing wall! This was no easy task (sadly). The climbing wall holds have 1.5″ bolts that protrude from the back of the plywood. This was no problem for the unfinished wall where I just strategically placed them between the studs. With dry wall though… I needed to do something else. I decided to remove all the climbing holds (48 bolts), mount the board, mark holes for the bolts, unmount the board, drill holes for the bolts, remount the board, reattach the climbing holds. It took forever. But Julius used it immediately the next morning so I consider it a complete win!
I don’t know if you noticed but it is FALL! My favorite season of all! And even better it is October! My favorite month of all! We decided to bike ride to apple picking/pumpkin picking with the kiddos this weekend and it was awesome! We got 6 different pumpkins/gourds and I would have gotten more if we could have fit them on the bikes. (Honestly it was pretty dicey getting these home as it was.)
Okay maybe I did go a bit overboard with the pumpkins.
I wanted to share the instructions for a virtual cookie decorating party! We did this as part of Danycon, but it would be fun to do as a stand alone event.
Virtual Cookie Decorating Party
What you’ll need (for 5 people):
- A batch of sugar cookies (6 cookies per person) with simple shapes – this is the best sugar cookie recipe of all time. You’ll want the cookies to be a bit on the thicker side so they hold up in shipping.
- 2 batches of 12 second Royal Icing (See my instructions here)
- gel food coloring
- 12″ disposable pastry bags
- food sealer and food sealing bags
- recycled paper or recycled bubble wrap for packing
Let sugar cookies cool completely. When cool, stack 2 cookies on top of each other, place in a food sealing bag and vacuum seal. I gave 3 cookies per person to decorate, but 6 per person is probably a better number.
After your icing is setup, divide into 3 equal batches. Leave one portion white, and color the others two portions with colors of your choice using a couple drops of gel food coloring. I chose blue and green for earth/sky/water colors.
Using 1/3 c measuring cup, measure 1/3 cup of icing into each pastry bag. I find it best to open the pastry bag inside a drinking glass, and fold the top of the bag down around the outside of the glass so the inside of the bag is ready for you to pour icing into!
Remove the air from each bag and then tie the bags shut.
Vacuum seal one bag of each color inside one vacuum bag.
Gently wrap the cookies in recycled paper or recycled bubble wrap to package them for shipping. Place the royal icing on the bottom, followed by the cookies. I also included a small ziplock bag with extra piping bags and toothpicks.
Before your cookie decorating session you’ll need to knead (see what I did there?) the royal icing in the bags because it may have separated. (Some of our bags also leaked a bit, so it was good to have the bags vacuum sealed.)
To take out the cookies, you can gently break the seal to let air in, then remove the cookies from the bag and very gently pry apart. I broke a couple of mine because I was impatient.
Then you can give this video a watch and learn a couple super simple techniques for decorating your cookies! After decorating, you’ll need to wait for the cookies to dry for maximum deliciousness! I recommend a day!
Look at that skill.
Will seems happy about the decorating.
Here are some finished cookies!
