Fall Cookie Recipe

I LOVE the coolness of fall! It means lots of baking at the Kingcade house!! Today, I was wanting oatmeal cookies and thought the addition of pumpkin pie spice would be great! I had everything on hand for these and a few minutes of naptime left to spare!! So, I have a batch of Spiced Oatmeal Cookies in the oven right now. They may or may not taste that great, but they sound wonderful! I'll update this later with the verdict!


Spiced Oatmeal Cookies (adapted from Sherry Lewis' Vanishing Oatmeal Cookies Recipe)

Cream together:
2 sticks butter, softened
1 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. sugar

Add and mix well:
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs

Add and mix well:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice *see update note below*

Stir in:
3 cups rolled oats

Drop by Tablespoon on ungreased (foil-lined for easy clean up) cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes, until golden brown. Cool and serve.


***Mine just came out of the oven and smell GREAT!! I'll let them cool and issue a verdict soon!

UPDATE: These are really good! My favorite combination of crispy on the outside and soft on the inside! BUT, if you really want that pumpkin pie spice flavor to dominate, DOUBLE the amount of pumpkin pie spice that you put in. Otherwise, leave it as-is and it still is really good!

Random Tid-Bits in Reverse Order

Today's crafting adventures.....shirt, bib and trick-or-treat bag for M.

Saturday's Crescent Cinnamon Rolls (crescent rolls, butter, sugar and cinnamon)...easy-peasy!
Lazy Saturday with M in Daddy's sweatshirt.
When I get M out of bed from her nap, she always tries to give me her stuffed animal. She always points and says "that."
Celebrating M's current Gotcha Day (September 17th) with dinner at Qdoba...she just had tortillas.


The morning of Gotcha Day before leaving for school. Since it was her special day, she got to celebrate by playing with the forbidden remote!

One Year Ago (a little late)

Between Sonshine School, celebrating our informal Gotcha Day (a new Gotcha Day coming soon!!!), and going to bed at 9:15 last night, I didn't get any blogging in! Those who know me much at all, know that 9:15 is extremely early for me! We all (M, included) got to sleep in until 10:30 today. Nice!!

On to the good stuff.....

One year ago, September 17th, 2008, I woke up from the restless night of sleep I had and started getting ready to meet our baby. I don't remember a whole lot about the morning before seeing her, but I do know that I was just trying to keep occupied. I was just so excited to get our first baby!

At 1:30 on that fall afternoon, I arrived at the agency, car seat buckled in the back of my car. Josh met me up at the agency to meet our little M. We knew so little of her, we just couldn't wait to see her! We waited in the office for several minutes, until M's (amazing) social worker, K, pulled up. We watched out the front window, as K pulled her from the back seat. I was instantly in love. M was so tiny in her little animal print pajamas. But, the first thing I noticed was her gorgeous dark hair. She had a head-full of straight, silky hair. She was sleeping and they handed her to me instantly. Although I've held so many newborns and taken care of babies, I remember feeling so nervous about holding my little tiny baby girl. She was so cuddly and so perfect.

After signing all of our paperwork, I loaded M into her car seat and headed to the church building. We took her to Josh's office to show his co-workers and allow Josh to have a little more time with her. We took lots of photos, then headed home, just me and M, to cuddle. But, the first thing I did when we got home, was put a bow in her hair!! We cuddled all afternoon and then went to Chick-fil-a for dinner with Matt, Mandy and Viv. We took more pictures, then went to church. I kept her in a little baby sling the whole time, but she wasn't very happy. There were too many new noises, people, experiences, etc. for one day. Looking back. I can't believe that I didn't take a week to just stay home with her to bond, give her some time to get used to her new home, etc. I guess I was just super excited to take her to church and show our friends and family this precious little baby that would be in our home for a while. If I had to do it over again, I definitely would have taken a week off to just be home with her and ease her in to new situations. But, she survived!

None of got very much sleep for the next several days, but we didn't care, she was just too perfect! From the moment that we saw her, my new prayer was, "Lord, please prepare my heart for whatever will happen with M (adopting her or giving her back)." I felt like that was what got me through the whole foster parenting thing, in general.

Here are a few answers to some questions I've gotten lately:

-We plan to foster more children in the next several months, after we take a break to just be the 3 of us, without any visits, paperwork, etc.

-We just found out yesterday that a date for finalization had been set for next Friday, but due to some clerical errors, we are going to have to be on a 30 day wait. So, mid to late October, hopefully she'll be officially our daughter. We'll keep you posted!



We feel like this past year has been filled with so many blessings! We are so thankful that God chose us to raise such a wonderful and beautiful baby girl!

Hard to believe

One year ago, today, September 16th, 2008, I got a phone call. I had no idea this phone call would change my life forever!

My social worker called and said that there were two babies available for us to foster. She described both of the little baby girls and they both sounded just perfect, although I knew nothing other than names, races, birth dates and a little of their family backgrounds.

She asked me to choose the one I wanted, but how can you possibly choose one baby over another...seriously!! I easily could have said, just let me come pick up both of them! But, that wasn't going to work. So, I told her about how over the past few months deep down I kept feeling that for some reason we were going to have a black baby girl. I had told my mom and Josh about it several times. I didn't at all know where that came from. It wasn't anything I had thought about at all, until last summer. So odd that I had specifically thought that. After I told my worker that, I let her choose our baby for us. The other foster mom was open, to either baby, too. So, the social worker gave us our little M, and the other mother her precious S.

We were called mid-morning on September 16th and told that we would be meeting our foster daughter later in the afternoon, as soon as everything got arranged. I had butterflies in my stomach, called and emailed close friends and family, started going around the house like crazy, making sure everything was good to go. We were going to have a little 3 1/2 week old baby girl in just a matter of hours!!! We ended up getting a call that we would have to get her on the 17th, instead at 1:30 in the afternoon. So, instead of picking up our little baby, we had to occupy our busy and excited minds with preparing for our new little one by buying her a few clothes, putting away the boy clothes and making the girl clothes front and center! I also had to make sure I had bows, just in case M had hair! I remember getting very little sleep, but not caring a bit. I just couldn't wait to meet the little baby girl that we would be caring for, "for a few months."

Reflecting on this today, I feel those same emotions that I did one year ago. A year ago I had no idea what God was going to do with our journey of miscarriage, infertility, and foster care. WOW! He is truly amazing!! It is so hard to believe how quickly this year has gone and how big my little baby girl is! I can't wait to write about tomorrow, the day we met little M!

M's 1st B-day in Pictures

I could have posted a ton more of M with the fam, but had to choose those lovely side-shots of M:)

M's 1st B-day Sneak Peek!

Here are just a few pics from M's big day today! Her Polka Dot Pool Party was a blast! I will share more pics later, but I'm just too tired at the moment to weed through all of them. We had a GREAT day today!! Thank you to all of our family for making M's day so much fun and so special!!! She loved every bit of it and enjoyed loving on everyone!! Yay for new toys, clothes, shoes, books, DVDs, carseat, etc.....THANK YOU!!!!!

My baby is one!

The day we got M, 3 1/2 weeks old, September 17, 2008

11 1/2 months old, August 9, 2009 (portrait by Holly Austin)


I am in shock that my little 18 pound baby is already one! I am so excited to see how much she has grown and changed. I love her so much and as cliche as this sounds, can't imagine my life without her! She has gone from a little 3 1/2 week itty bitty baby who would wake up in the night, sleep all nestled up and stay wherever you put her to a crawling, pulling-up, sleeping through the night, little girl. We have been incredibly blessed to have her in our lives. I can't believe that God matched us so perfectly with such a sweet, beautiful and special little baby girl. I have shed several tears the past few days realizing that my little M is quickly becoming less of a baby and more of a toddler. I can't believe how fast this phase of our lives has passed and I guess it has hit me even more that I'll never get that time with her back. We truly enjoyed that time with her and savored it, but it still went too fast. I am super excited, though, to see her grow!

At the age of one (tear) this is what M is doing:

-crawling
-pulling-up
-cruising
-pushing toys (while walking)
-saying: God, thank you God (points to the ceiling while saying it), yeah, yay, yes, thank you, Momma, Dadda, Ya Ya, Nan Nan, duck, mmmuh (kisses), mmmmm (when food is good), several other words I can't think of at the moment!

-she loves to shake her head yes/no and cracks us up by doing so every time we ask her a question
-understands lots of words/phrases: no, turn off the light, where's your baby (gives the baby hugs and kisses every time she sees it), milk, eat, bath, book, toys, play, drink, yogurt, night-night, paci, etc. We are starting to spell lots of things around here!

-loves to clap and dance (anytime she hears music or a beat)

-could live off of black beans, yogurt and Mum Mums (but we don't let her:))
-hasn't had to go to the doctor (for illness) this whole year...YAY!!
-loves Bible Class and Sonshine School
-loves other children and babies
-loves to give hugs and kisses
-loves to be rocked
-loves watching the fish at the zoo
-loves books (one of her favorite "toys")
-gets SO excited when Josh comes home from work...immediately crawls up into his lap and gives him a kiss (unprompted)


We love you, M, Happy 1st Birthday!! We are SOOO thankful God placed you with us! We have loved watching you grow this year! You are an amazing and beautiful little baby girl!! You'll always be my BABY GIRL!!!