Merry Christmas!

Christmas "Baking"

I'm somewhat "challenged" in the kitchen. I love to watch the Food Network, and I REALLY love to eat, but cooking is just one of those skills God decided was best not to bestow on me. I'm always amazed that I can take a seemingly simple recipe, and completely mess it up somehow. I have a few tried and true meals and desserts that I stick with, and thankfully I have a husband who will eat pretty much anything and is just grateful he didn't have to make it. I have dreams of someday making these elaborate meals when I don't have a child attached to my leg and have endless free time, but for now, I'm content just getting edible meals on the table. So, when it comes to baking at Christmas, I take the easy way out and look for cute EASY things that even a child can make. And like the turkey cookies we made, it's really more like crafting than cooking. Right up my alley.

I found these little Rudolph cookies in my old standby, Family Fun magazine. They were super-easy to make; here are the ingredients.

I put the icing on, and Eliza broke the pretzels and added the eyes and red nose.

Of course Davis had to join in on anything that involves food.

My other favorite goodie to make is Candy Popcorn; many thanks to my friend Suzanne for introducing me to this addictive snack. It's very easy too---just a bag of microwave popcorn, white chocolate chips, and sprinkles, just for fun. For the popcorn, I like a good butter flavor--I mean, what's better than salty, buttery, and sweet all in the same bite?? YUM. Make the popcorn, and melt 1/2 bag or 1 cup of the chocolate chips in the microwave. Then put the popcorn in a big mixing bowl, pour the melted chocolate over it, and stir it around until all the popcorn is coated. Then spread it out on the counter on aluminum foil or something like that. As you can see, I had to improvise. Yes, that is a trash bag; but it is a clean, new trash bag. I coudn't find my roll of Press N Seal, and all I had in the drawer was an empty box of foil (didn't I mention I'm challenged in the kitchen?) But the trash bag worked just as well. Spread out the popcorn, and sprinkle with the sprinkles, and just let it dry. Then snack uncontrollably until it is all gone.

Davis became an addict, too. He even pulled up his own chair so he could get his little grabby hands on more of the goods.

Snow and sugar plum fairies

We had our first snow the night before last, which is always exciting. Especially exciting since we never really know if we will have snow at all around here. I remember as a child (I grew up here) sledding ALL the time---we lived in a great hilly neighborhood and we'd start each time by putting plastic baggies on our hands and feet beneath our gloves and socks (not sure why?), layer up with all our snow gear, and then head out for hours of fun. We'd get together with the neighbor kids, and work away down the street, sledding down everyone's back yard. Then we'd come home, take off our sopping wet clothes, and sit in front of a space heater in the basement floor warming up. Good times. I loved playing in the snow as a child. But as an adult, I'm more of a fan of sitting inside, nice and warm and dry, and watching it fall.

Since it started snowing late Thursday afternoon as it was getting dark, we just turned off the inside lights and watched it fall through the window. Perfect. Then Friday morning, Eliza didn't mention anything about wanting to go outside, and I sure didn't, so I took a deep sigh of relief as the snow was melting and I thought we would get away with not having to go outside.

But then our sweet neighbors rang the doorbell, and that was the end of my warm and dry day. So we layered up in non-snow clothes---besides some snow boots I got for Eliza at a consignment sale, we have no snow gear. I'm always afraid if I buy them snowsuits, I'll jinx the chance that we will ever get snow. But after about a half hour of getting dressed, we headed out and they did have a blast.

Here's my snow princess and Stay-Puff marshmallow man.

Our neighbors Jacob, Joey, and Andrew brought their sled and taught Eliza the art of making snowballs. Which she practiced by hurling them all at me.

Also this week, Eliza's class at school made gingerbread houses and mommies came to help decorate. After buying one of those kits last year and doing one at home, I was curious as to how her teachers were going to do 14 of those things, which are quite labor-intensive and have to dry over night. But I loved what they did---Miss Patti collected empty little milk cartons from her daughters school and a couple of moms (me included) took them home and hot-glued graham crackers to them, and then glued them to a heavy paper plate. It worked out great---they were very sturdy, and other moms just brought in icing, gum drops, candy canes, gummy bears, fruit roll-ups (for windows), pretzels (for doorframes) and coconut (for snow). They turned out very cute and they kids had a great time!

Last weekend, we went with our playgroup to see a local youth ballet production of a mini-Nutcracker. I took Eliza last year, and wasn't expecting much as it was kids dancing, and the tickets were so cheap ($6 adult, $4 child). But I was sooo impressed by the production. The sets and costumes look like what you see in a professional performance, and the dancers were beautiful. And it's only a little over an hour long, which is perfect for little ones. And for me, too, really. I always fall asleep in the real one. Here are our little sugar plum fairies---aren't they precious!

Whew, that was a lot! But I'm now FINISHED with all my Christmas duties, so I'm looking forward to relaxing and enjoying the rest of the holidays, and focusing on the real reason for this season. And I'll be counting my blessings, too!

Scrapbooking

I finally got around to getting some more scrapbook pages printed and here are a few I really liked. Yes, they are all pretty much from last year, but it was fun to look back back and see how much my babies have grown. I got them printed here, and they have a $.99 sale a couple of times a year. I'm going to fill up the two albums I have now, and then I think I'm going to just start having them made into photobooks, and just do one for each year. Winkflash and Artscow now do 12x12 photobooks, and I like the idea of having a year's worth of pictures all in one book. And their prices are good too, only about $25 for a 20 page hardbound book. I'm actually caught up in scrapbooking up through this past Easter, which is really good for me! This past spring, Stephen took the kids to his parents for the weekend to give me a little "mini-vacation", and I got about 30 pages done in those couple of days, which was fantastic. It's amazing what you can get done with no interruptions. My goal is to one day stay caught up and scrap the pages as soon as the I take the pictures, but I don't really ever see that happening in the near future :).

A few videos

Here are a few little videos from the past week or so. Below is Davis checking out the Christmas tree for the first time. He said "big ball" about 200 times.

Here is Eliza's Thanksgiving program at school. They did a great job!

And here's our nightly PJ dance party in Eliza's room. Not sure where Davis gets his dance

moves. He looks like a little old man.

We sure are thankful for our healthy little monkeys!

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving, that was a little chaotic thanks to these little turkeys below, but even with at least one child crying throughout our entire meal, I was so thankful for all the healthy little ones in our family.

That's Eliza, Howell, Davis, Cooper, and Betsy Hart. They actually cooperated really well for these pictures!



Eliza had a Thanksgiving program at school, and we made these little turkey cookies to take. She was sooo excited about making them after seeing them in Family Fun, and as I am somewhat "baking challenged", I thought they looked right up my alley. They were very easy and turned out really cute!

A gaggle of turkeys (is that the right plural??)

Yesterday I headed out at 5:30 am for Black Friday shopping with my sister Heather, sis-in-law Ann, and friend Suzanne. We had a blast! I usually go by myself, but it was sooo much more fun having a group to chat with while we waited in line and found all the deals. I got all but a couple of things I was looking for, and pretty much knocked out all my Christmas shopping in a few hours. I'm kind of a dork about it, scouring through sales ads and making a list of each store to go to and what I'll be getting at each place (next year I'm hoping to make a spreadsheet, instead of wagging around a spiral notebook like I usually do), but it's so much faster than browsing, and I love to have a plan. We're hoping to make it a Black Friday tradition to all go together!

It's been lots of fun being with all the fam this weekend, and we're not done yet! It's been a little wild, but it just makes me all the more thankful for all the blessings God has given us.

Classic

Everyone must have a screaming Santa picture, right? I think it's a rite of passage for childhood.

And brave Eliza; you can see the fear in her eyes, but at least she graduated to actually sitting on his lap this year. Last year she would only stand next to him, while keeping a safe distance. This is great improvement over the 2 years before when she would go into hysterical screaming fits and shaking at just the sight of good ole' St. Nick. I was proud of both of them!

CUTE site for Christmas gifts!

**UPDATE** The website I mentioned below has removed the post from their blog that said you could get a free ornament if you mentioned their site and put a link to it from your blog. I guess more people than they expected linked to it. I still haven't heard from them.

How cute is this ornament?

I heard someone who was from the north one time say "Why do southerners want to put their names on EVERYTHING??" after seeing a little girl in a monogrammed dress. And as a true southerner, I also love putting names on everything. So I came across this site, Frill Seekers Gifts, and they have about everything you could ever think of, and more, for personalized gifts (including this ornament in all kind of color combos) that are CUTE CUTE CUTE! Visit their blog, and they are offering a free monogrammed ornament like this one. While you're there, visit their site for a ALL kinds of Christmas gifts for anyone on your list!

Fun with leaves!

Wow, the leaves are beautiful around here right now. Saturday night we got the fire pit out in the front yard and had some neighbors over for hot dogs and smores. It was a little chilly, but the kids (6 of them) had a blast raking up the leaves and jumping in them, burying each other in them, and just throwing them around. It was so much fun to watch. After having carried around a marshmallow and nibbling on it for a while, poor Davis had leaves stuck all over his hands and face. But he had a blast anyway.

Yesterday we decided it would be fun to do something crafty with the beautiful leaves around our neighborhood, so we took off on a walk and collected. I'd found this idea on the Family Fun website, and here are a couple of Eliza's creations. I drew the butterfly, and she colored it in and did all the glueing. It was actually a great lesson in glueing---instead of putting one big blob in the middle, we talked about making "snakes" of glue using the veins of the leaves as guides. She requested an idea to make a turkey, so I found this idea on another craft site, but I can't remember which one. We thought they turned out pretty cute!

My first and last political post

I've said before that I'm just really not interested in politics. I honestly confess that I just find it all kind of boring. I live in a red state, and a county that was 80% red in the 2004 election (I can't find any recent stats), so I do lean to the right. But I really don't know much about taxes, healthcare reform, foreign policy, etc. And I usually wouldn't waste blog space writing about something I know nothing about. But I just have to get this off my chest.

The man I voted for didn't win. But I'm supporting our new president, because that is what I believe, as Christians, we are called to do.

Thanks to Susan for posting this scripture on her blog, passed on by her father-in-law, who is a pastor:

"Make the Master proud of you by being good citizens. Respect the authorities, whatever their level; they are God's emissaries for keeping order. Exercise your freedom by serving God, not by breaking the rules. Treat everyone you meet with dignity. Love your spiritual family. Revere God. Respect the government." 1 Peter 2:15, 17 (The Message translation)

I'm thankful that we have a pastor who does not talk about politics; he's only mentioned the election once, a few weeks before the vote. He is currently preaching through Nehemiah and was talking about how Nehemiah was serving an ungodly king at the time, but that he was still a faithful servant who respected the king. Mark made the statement "God is not bound by who is in the White House", a powerful truth that I feel like many of us have lost sight of. He also quoted this scripture to back that up:

"The king's heart is like a stream of water directed by the Lord; he guides it wherever he pleases." Proverbs 21:1 (NLT)

It seems to be popular right now among republican Christians to bash our new president. Fueled by many FALSE accusations floating around about Obama through email chains and youtube videos, I hear many fellow believers saying he is not a citizen, he is a muslim, unpatriotic, a terrorist, even the anti-christ, which in my opinion, is ludicrous. Most of the time, people who believe these things have never even done the research to see if such things are true; they just believe whatever was sent to them in some chain mail (http://www.snopes.com/ is a good place to check the actual facts).There is even the opinion that he must be an evil terrorist based solely on his name. His father was from Africa; that does not make him a terrorist. Or non-american. I'm confounded that educated people would actually espouse this opinion. And he is not muslim. Here is a direct quote from Obama from an interview I watched on Good Morning America with Robin Roberts when she was questioning him about various rumors going around about him:

ROBERTS: Okay. Are you a Muslim?
BARACK OBAMA: No. Made it up. They made it up. This is -- and this started back in Iowa. I am a Christian and have never been a Muslim. It's an example of the power of the internet these days, people tend to just believe what they receive. So that one would be false. I believe Jesus Christ died for my sins and that has been the faith that we are raising our daughters to believe, as well.

I seriously doubt the anti-christ would be proclaiming that. (Here is a transcript of that entire interview if you would like to read more.) Regardless of his political beliefs, he is a brother in Christ, and that fact alone demands that we give him our respect.

I've heard fellow republicans say they cried the night of the election as they watched the coverage. I was moved to tears, as well. But not because my man lost. But because I found it very moving to see the rainbow of skin colors represented in the crowd at Grant Park. All races united, supporting a common cause. It was a historic election, and I can't help but think about Martin Luther King, and all those who fought for civil rights; hopefully they know it was worth the fight. I can't help but think that Obama has become a face of hope for African-american children, who can see that there really is no limit as to what they can accomplish.

Instead of bashing Obama, let's pray for him. He has a big job to do, and needs God's direction. For the first time that I can recall in the past 10 years, we have a president that is incredibly popular and respected around the world. People all over wanted to hear what he has to say. He has HUGE sphere of influence. I believe that with our fervant prayers, God can use him to do great things.

So there, I'm done. That's all I have to say about that.