The Best Homemade Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

Over ten years ago I found one of those fantastic cookies! Thanks so much to my sister-in-law as she gave me this recipe so I could make her little brother happy. The first time I put one of these cookies in my mouth I about fainted... because they are that good. Now-a-days, I can't make them that often because they are that good. Usually I make them for the super bowl party and only by special request.
So if I haven't thanked you in a while, THANK YOU KC!

Cookies

Oven pre-heated at 350 degrees
2 boxes of Devil's Food Cake mix
1 Cup Oil (I used Extra Virgin Olive Oil)
4 Eggs
Combine all ingredients together until combined well. Roll into 1 inch balls and place on a un-greased cookie sheet. Cook for 8-10 minutes on 350 degree F.  Set on cooling racks and let cool for at least five minutes, then you may take them off the cookie sheets and place then individually place them on the cooling racks to fully cool.

 Cream Cheese Frosting

1 8 oz. block of cream cheese soften
1 stick of butter (1/4 cup) soften
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 1/2-2 cups of powdered sugar

Blend the cream cheese and butter in a bowl until blended well. Add the vanilla and powdered sugar. Once the cookies are completely cooled frost one cookie and find a pair that matches it and make a sandwich.

You of course can use whatever shape you want for the cookies. Also, you can add some food coloring to the frosting for something different. For the Super Bowl, I usually make these cookies and I try and make them in the football shape.
I always have bled orange, so of course this year I made the frosting ORANGE! Regardless of how the Broncos played (which wasn't good at all) and the Seahawks dominated in all aspects of the game.... I will always end the day by saying, GO BRONCOS!!!!!!!!!!

On the 1st day of February....

The Reeser Family is getting ready for Valentine's Day this year!

Instead of being a Valentines Day Grinch.... I choose to turn it into a fun example of how God loves us, just like we do with the other holidays that I love.

So what better way to show Valentine's Day than hugs and kisses, XOXO! We ran to Walmart and got two of each x's and o's. The next day we got everything ready: paint colors chosen, paint brushes, newspaper on table.... but wait Mama's got to take a picture first! CHEESE!!!!

I am making O's on my O!

Doing a great job getting the letter O covered everywhere with the color pink.

On the first day of FEBRUARY mama made for us! Cinnamon Swirl Bread (Pepperidge Farm) heart shaped french toast, bacon and not-so-good-looking heart shaped strawberries.

Thankfully we already purchased our valentines cards from last year (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for fifty cents) and other than purchasing the x's and o's we really didn't have to spend much money. I don't plan on spending money on too many other things for our fun ideas that I may create or have gotten it off of Pinterest. And we are also going to use the 3 R's from things around the house. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.

I know that the Lord will help me to share His love with my family and others and that is why I choose to make this month fun and exciting. Attitude is everything, I know that my family and friends, can tell with I am not excited about something. Life is an adventure and I am so blessed to get to experience it with my husband and two little boys. No matter the hardship, or how I feel I need to rejoice in what the Lord has done! I am so thankful to serve the Almighty Lord who give me grace, love and hope even when I am not in the mood! In my devotions I read  Romans 8 and so much of what it shared about is the things that I have been struggling with.

Nothing can take that away from my LORD and his LOVE!!!!!!!!!

Romans 8:38-39

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Fall Decorations

Oranges and yellows! Candy corn, sunflowers, acorns, cornucopia, turkeys, pilgrams, I love fall decor!!!!! This year I tried to do a few different decorations especially since we have changed the furniture around. Everything was pretty simple.

Glitter Pumpkins Over Black Eyed Peas:

First off this was probably the easiest craft that I have ever done! I took black-eyed-peas and put them in a glass square vase and then I placed glitter pumpkins on top. It's simple, I really like it and it was very cheap, which my families budget liked.

Candy Corn Vase:

I did this the once but then had to redo it because I didn't like it at the level that it was at. So then I decided to put something in my vase that would fill the center of the it. I grabbed a toilet paper roll and then put scott tape on both of the ends, but I am sure that one end would work. Next, I hot glued the toilet paper roll to the vase. 

I used yellow popcorn kernels, then I dyed star noodles orange and navy beans you could use what ever you want. Of course I was going for the candy corn look.

There you have it!  

Love God…. Love People!!!! Operation Christmas Child

God is so good! I am so thankful to know him in such a marvelous way and that I can talk to him whenever I want to.  God's greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, all you mind and all your strength.  The runner up commandment is love your neighbor as yourself.

I am so excited to participate in Operation Christmas Child this year as it is every year. It is such a joy to fill those boxes and pray over the child God has already picked for your box!

Here are some links that help our family pack our boxes!
Operation Christmas Child
That is simply everything you need to know about when, where, how and WHY to pack a shoebox for a child.

Packing a shoebox
Here is a list of different ideas of things that you can pack. It is also very important to make sure and read what NOT to pack as well.

Veggies wanna help too
This is a fun video for the little ones to help pack a box.  I went ahead and put a a few other things from the webpage that I thought were the best fit for our family! One was a picture of the newest Christmas Veggie Tale and the second was a Lets Be Friends page. There are also some labels just incase you need them too!

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  COLORING PAGE

  Download: PDF



 
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  COLORING PAGE

  Download: PDF
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  BOY/GIRL BOX LABELS

  Download: JPG | EPS
  Hopefully this was helpful and you got some ideas of what to do when and if you pack up a box.  This goes to children who need to know of God love for them and how He sent His Son for them!!!! Get creative and enjoy!
  Also for any Duck Dynasty fans there is several Uncle Si packing shoeboxes videos as well.

Thomas and Sir Topham Hatt Costumes

Making a Thomas the Tank Engine and a Sir Topham Hatt

My boys love Thomas and Friends... so what better than a costumes than have in my older son as a Thomas and the youngest as Sir Topham Hatt since he is still a little bit of chunky I was thinking if something cute for him. So I had a large box and decided to make a fun costume. I started it pretty early on becaus I knew it would take a with for me to complete this. 

We had purchased some red and blue spray paint for the this project and we alway have a large amount of boxes and we also a black from a previous project. I took a knife and cut of all of the flaps except one that the smoke stack and bell were going to be on.  Next was to spray paint the out side of the box blue and of course that was done out doors.

I took both of the wider side flaps of the box and thought about making some wheels out of them. I then traced around a circular (flower pot) shape and started to cur them out. Their was enough room for three on each side, so that meant there we six all together there were six. Three on each side. From there used what ever I could with to make red duct tap, a black painted smoke stack a toilet paper roll with smoke out of the stack aka cotton balls, and a bronze bell. We also had copied a Thomas head and then glued on the lid to the coffee can.  Someone had given a pair of engineer overalls and for MJ's birthday he got a sweet little Thomas hat and then he had some suspenders with another little outfit. There are several other details that only some who watches a whole lot of Thomas the Tank Engine.

Next was Sir Topham Hatt! I used a old coffee can and I then got a paper plate and cut out the center and then hot glue gunned them together and then spray painted them black. The only other thing that I had to do was to saftey pin some yellow felt  to a white shirt and then then I turn one of Siah's suit coat inside out. The pants for that went along with the suit coat were grey and he has lots of ties for Sundays. His custom was fairly simple!

Our town does a parade for the Halloween and there our are age groups for the custom judging and then give out bags candy and hot chocolate.

We set up a little studio at hime and had some fun taking some photos of our sweet boys!!!! Thanks for all of your help Keith couldn't have done it with out you.

Missions Trip Day 2

Mission Trip

Reynosa, MX

1 Peter 5

Day 2

After sweating so much yesterday, I wasn’t sure that I could handle the heat in Mexico. God is GOOD! In the forecast it was suppose to be very hot all week but in San Antonio it RAINED!!!!!!!! I have never been so happy to be loading up the van in pouring down rain.  I was even a little chilly because of the rain.

Group praying before we leave for San Antonio to Reynosa, Mexico

We had about a four hours to the Mexico border.

For lunch we had Subway sandwiches and there was a Dairy Queen across the street. Alania and I shared a 12 inch sandwich and it had wonderful gucamole. Sara had mad the saying of you never pass up a bathroom or guacamole on road trips or just in general… that became our saying every time someone would go to the bathroom or had guacamole. We were about two hours away from getting to me Betsy and who ever else was going to transport or luggage over.

Meeting Betsy and Randall were super excited to see us. The Texas office of Children’s Haven International, is where the thrift store, fundraising, and offices are located.

The first place that we went was the room with all the children pictures.  I was super excited to see all of them and was surprised that there wasn’t anyone who really stuck out at me. Even though I was expecting some of them to stick out at me.  Instead their where faces on a wall and at that point the nerves started to kick in and begin to fill my mind. What was I doing? I have spoken Spanish since 2004 in my not so awesome Spanish class. At that point I had to start to pray.

“Lord please let there be someone that I can impact or will have an impact on me. There are 53 children on this wall, please help me to be patient and be able to communicate with one or two of them.”
Once we had crossed the border we travel about 10-20 minutes and we were at the 15 acre compound of Children's Haven International, CHI. 

We made it! No issues with customs and we traveled over to CHI in less than thirty minutes. What a relief to finally get to the spot were I have been preparing in my heart to go for about a year. We had a quick tour of the campus and here the women's side of the dormitory.

The dormitory were the only rooms that were air condition.... and I slept excellent every night. That poor little air unit was working to keep the room at 68 degrees. It sure was a huge answer to prayer when the temperature was not as hot as it was expected to to be. Now don't get me wrong, it was still hot but not he 110 degrees that is was supposed to be. 

We were able to meet all the children, the house parents who they called Tio (Uncle) and Tia (Aunt), other staff at CHI. During the summer there are two interns, Stephanie from Tx and Josh from KS joined us this summer. We were able to attend one of there weekly chapels and then hang out at afterwards and play some soccer and start to get to know the kiddos.

I was so ready to go to bed and get up and work early in the morning.

1 Peter 5:5-7

5In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because,

“God opposes the proud

but shows favor to the humble.”

⁶ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. ⁷ Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.