Love Days like these

I wanted to help make the holiday's a little easier for LInda since Rosetta died. I know that she will still be sad but I also wanted to give her many good reasons to be happy so I invited her to help Charlie and I make kolaches for Grandpa Jindra for Thanksgiving. Grandpa Jindra is full Czech and loves this little dessert.

I just love this picture of Charlie and her Grandmother's hands. What is it about hands? I just love hand pictures especially when it shows two sizes. I just love taking pictures of Charlie and Linda's hands.

Five years ago, when I first started teaching at St. John Nepomuk Catholic School I had this wonderful family in my class. Mrs. Parizek made Kolaches for the Czech Fest. I asked her if she would teach me. So one morning I showed up at her house at 6 am and spent the next five hours learning. I have always had the best intentions on making them, but never taken the time. This year I needed to be different. I needed to take the time because I feel like I have been getting to wrapped up in the unimportant. So, I asked Linda to come over.
We had the best day! I missed my mom so much. Which is funny since I was trying to help Linda not miss her mom. Growing up I would watch mom make pies for Thanksgiving dinner. I haven't done that since 1994. I really miss that innocent time with her. She is alive and in Florida and this little experiment made me want to be a teenager again watching her roll out the pie crusts. Anyway, back to this story, Charlie couldn't stand that the "balls" weren't coming out the be the exact size.

As you can tell both, Linda and Charlie had a great time. (See the tool in Charlie's hand. That is the one she used to try and turn Brantley into a frog.)

Brantley even joined in for a little while. That $30 we spent on the Snguli was so worth it! Brantley just loves it. And for once I have an activity that I did with Charlie and I have pictures of me!

How yummy do these look? We made apricot, apple, cherry, and prune. We used the old Parizek recipe that Sheryl gave me five years ago. I think I only missed one maybe two steps and nothing that "ruined" them. Next time I will have them looking much better. I am pretty impressed with us! And I just had one of those "GREAT" days. But, I really miss my MOMMY! How silly is that?