Our set of 101 cookie cutters

Do you remember our set of 101 cookie cutters? They were plastic, and we picked them up at Walmart then used them to make sugar cookies for just about every holiday and season!

Christmas by far was the most popular time, with us usually making a couple of different batches during the holidays. Our cookie cutters included Christmas trees, gingerbread men, bells, candy canes, snowmen and stockings.

We also made cookies at Halloween (ghost, haunted house, bat, black cat, pumpkins), Easter (duckies, cross, Easter bunny, Easter egg), and Valentine's Day (three sets of hearts). Letters also came with the set so I could spell out our names!

I usually mixed and match them for different seasons; for example we the footprint, the moon (for the sun) and the fish for going to the beach! I love you and miss making cookies with you!

Do you remember baking cookies?

Do you remember all of the cookies we baked when living in the green house in Lancaster?

We used to make sugar cookies from scratch. You would help me roll out the dough, press the cookie cutter into the dough, sprinkle flour around the dough so it would roll and cut easily, and then putting sprinkles on the frosted cookies after they came out of the oven!

For each season, we made different kinds of cookies. I always like to make cookies for fall/football opener, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's Day, and Easter.

All of your clothes, your hair, your face, and your hands would be absolutely covered in flour and frosting and sprinkles when we were all done, so I always had you take a bath afterward! Then when you got all clean, you'd get to enjoyed the warm, freshly frosted and decorated cookies!

My email sent to you on Feb. 16, 2013

Here is my email sent to you today, just in case you are not allowed to see it:

Hi Kieran,

How are you doing? I’m doing fine, though I miss you terribly. I can’t wait to see you again on March 1!

Did you have a great Valentine’s Day party at school? Did you to exchange valentine cards and have fun snacks? What kind of valentine cards did you hand out? When I was a little boy your age, I always wanted to give out “Star Trek” valentine day cards, but they didn’t sell any…highly illogical, if you ask me.

How is school going? What kinds of things are you learning about? Kindergarten today is much different than what it was like when I went to school. Back in my day, most of our time was spent playing with only maybe an hour or so actually doing school work. We also had nap time. I didn’t always like nap time because it interrupted my playing!

When we did art projects, especially painting, we had to wear “aprons” so we didn’t get paints on our clothes. Do you know what we used for “aprons”? We got to wear one of our dad’s old shirts that he no longer wanted! We’d put the shirt on backwards so that it entirely covered the front of our clothing.

Have you had a chance to visit places like the zoo, museums or amusement parks in Minneapolis-St. Paul? I would love to hear about your adventures. I have not really done any of that as I’ve been going to lots of book stores and coffeehouses where I promote the books I’ve written.

I bet you are very excited about next week as it’s your birthday! I can’t believe you’re six already! Do you have a birthday party planned? Last year we celebrated your birthday at Chuck E Cheese in Lancaster. You might recall that you received a Transformer and an art supply set for gifts. We had lots of fun playing all of the games. When we are together again, we’ll have lots of fun celebrating your birthdays. Grandma and Grandpa Bignell always throw special birthday parties for their grandchildren in which they invite over the whole family, make a special meal, have a big birthday cake, and exchange presents. Your cousin Bryan just had a birthday a couple of weeks ago. He turned 13 and got a wallet, Legos, cash and cards galore.

Before closing this letter, I want you to know that I love you very much. I always have loved you and always will. I know this is a very difficult time for you, and I am working very hard every day to resolve this situation. I always have enjoyed our time together and look forward to the many, many fun days we have ahead together.

One way to help us through this time is for us to exchange emails. Unfortunately, I have not received any emails from you for the past seven weeks. I know you want to write emails back. Perhaps this week your responses to my emails will be sent to me as you wish.

Love,

Dad

Happy Valentine's Day, Kieran!

I hope you're enjoying the day. I bet there's a big Valentine's Day party at school today!

Here's a Valentine's Day memory from when I as close to your age (in first grade). The weekend before our school Valentine's Day party, I was so excited about it that I took the valentine cards I was to hand out to my classmates and started filling them out in secret. My mom wanted so much to do them with me and was so mad - mainly because rather than useing the class list the teacher sent home, I just started writing names, misspelling a bunch of them and not making out cards for some of my classmates (I forgot they were in my class!). So my mom had to go through them, sort them all out against the class list, make me finish filling out cards to some and rewriting the names correctly on others!

I wish we were together for Valentine's Day! I love you!

My email sent to you on Jan. 26, 2013

Here is the email I sent to you on Jan. 26, 2013, just in case you don’t get to see it:

Hi Kieran,

How are you doing? I’m doing fine, though I miss you very much and think about you every day. The good news is that we finally will be able to see one another again in just six days, on Feb. 1! I will enjoy catching up with you since I have not received your emails during the past months. Hopefully you have been receiving mine; I have kept all of my emails to you and will show them to you once we are allowed to see one another again.

We have much to celebrate when we see each other on Friday. First, there is Valentine’s Day! Do you get to exchange valentines with your classmates on Feb. 14? I always did when I went to school. We also had parties, too, usually in the afternoon. Everybody in school looked forward to them. We also got to make valentine mailboxes that we’d put on our desk for our classmates to drop valentines into. One year, I made a valentine box that looked like a gas station!

We’ll celebrate Valentine’s Day together on Feb. 1 with some of grandma’s yummy valentine sugar cookies! She also is baking another special treat that you’ll really like – it’s one of your favorite sweets!

The second thing we have to celebrate is your birthday! Everybody has birthday presents for you, and I can’t wait for you to open them. Is there anything special you wanted for your birthday this year? Last year for your birthday on Feb. 23, you and I went to Chuck E Cheese together in Lancaster, and you got a Transformer toy and an art set. We then played all kinds of games together. I had lots of fun with you!

There’s another big day coming up in February – President’s Day. We usually celebrate George Washington’s and Abraham Lincoln’s birthdays on President Day, which is Feb. 18 this year. Speaking of Abraham Lincoln, today I saw a movie about him at the theater. It was a very good movie, and one day when you’re older I’m sure you’ll want to watch it. Some people said the movie is too serious, but you’re a very smart boy, so when you get older I’m certain you’ll enjoy it.

Have you read any good books lately? I have. It was about Abraham Lincoln! The book was called “Abe Lincoln Crosses a Creek” by Deborah Hopkinson. Actually, it’s about when Abraham Lincoln was a boy, maybe 6 or 7 years old. He and his friend Austin have to get across a very dangerous creek but because there’s no bridge they run into problems. I bet your school library or the public library has a copy of the book that you could check you. Perhaps your mother or Grandpa Don could read it to you!

Well, that it is all for now. I can’t wait to see you in just a few days!

Love,

Dad

My letter to you from Jan. 19, 2013

Here is my email sent to you today, in case you don’t receive it.

Hi Kieran,

How are you doing? I’m doing fine, though I miss you very much. I miss not being able to spend time with you and talking to you on the phone every night like we used to do .

I am very excited, though, that we will see each other in just two short weeks on Feb. 1. When we get together, we will have two big days to celebrate: Valentine’s Day and your birthday! Grandma is whipping up some fun Valentine’s Day sweets for you, and all of us – me, grandma and grandpa, Uncle Chris-Aunt Suzy-and-your-cousins-Bryan-and-Rebekah – all have bought birthday presents for you. They all miss you, too, and though you may not remember them because you were so young the last time you saw them, they all remember you! They can’t wait, either, to finally see you again.

How was your first week back to school? I bet seeing your friends again after a couple of weeks off was a lot of fun. When I was a little boy your age, it also was a lot of fun to find out what all of my friends got for Christmas and some of the neat places they went during their winter break.

Do you enjoy the snow in Minnesota? You always liked it when we went up to the mountains together after a snowfall. We’d go sledding together and throw snowballs. Sometimes we’d stop off for a steaming cup of hot chocolate. Although the winters do get long in Minnesota, one nice thing about them is you have lots of opportunities to drink hot chocolate!

I am glad you’ve enjoyed the games, toys, art supplies and books I’ve been bringing to our visits. Playing with and reading to again has been a lot of fun for me, too. What games should I bring next time? I was thinking some card games like Old Maid or Go Fish. Email me to let me know which games you’d like to play.

You may notice that these questions were the same that I asked the previous week. Unfortunately, your answers to them were not sent. So, I am repeating them in hopes that your mother will correct this problem by resending your answers (as well as your emails to my last three weeks of emails to you).

Have you read any good books lately? One good Valentine’s Day book you might like to find at your school or city library is “Hedgehug: A Sharp Lesson in Love” by Dan Pinto. We read it together a couple of years ago, and you liked it a lot. You might recall that’s about a hedgehog who looks for someone to be his valentine, but no one wants to hug him because hedgehogs have prickly hair. Will he find someone to give his Valentine card to? You’ll have to read the book!

That is all for now. I love you very much and can’t wait to see you on Feb. 1!

Love,

Dad