Merry Christmas!

Sorry for the belated well-wishes!  I finally uploaded my camera photos now that March is almost over, and I'm going to retroactively post some of them. (back-dating them, since this blog is mostly a family history of sorts)

We had cousins over and made gingerbread houses.  Hopefully this will be a yearly tradition!

Christmas 2012

Christmas was so fun this year.  We're still a young enough family that we're trying to decide what our traditions should be, and since our kids are really loving donuts lately, I thought it might be fun to try making some for a special Christmas breakfast.  (Normally, our kids aren't allowed treats until after lunch).  I made this donut recipe for Christmas breakfast.  SOOOO GOOD.  The glaze was much richer than your typical powdered sugar and milk also.  YUM!  I made the dough the night before and let it rise in the bowl overnight in the fridge.  Then I pulled the bowl out of the fridge while we went through our stockings.  Then we all rolled and cut them out and let them raise while we opened presents.  The timing was perfect!  We had dinner with our neighbors.  I'm getting really good at rolls... I'll share after a few more experiments :)  Some pics below:

Singing a Christmas hymn before opening presents

The Frog found the pickle ornament this year!

anticipating his pickle prize- green tic tacs (they look like pickles, right?)

Peach riding on Hazel's gift from Nanie & Gampie, wearing a gift sent from Iris

Frying doughnuts

glazed mmmmm

kids wanted sprinkles

whipped cream filling. mmmmmmmmmm

Christmas 'n Crafty

I had high hopes of pulling off an advent calendar with an activity every day, but just couldn't get it together.  I need to plan earlier next year.  We did do a few of the things on my list though.

I went SUPER SUPER easy for neighbor gifts this year- something the kids could help with, quick and non-messy.  We made these little nutter butter reindeer cookies.

We made snow globes of the kids one day, but it didn't end up being that cool- it was more like a mom project and also they just weren't that fun with glitter that FLOATS.  boo.  They didn't get a lot of use and now they are still sitting on the kitchen counter, cluttering up my life and I can't decide what to do with them.  For some reason, I can't throw them away...

At my ward's play group, the kids made these little "snowman Nativities".  Isn't marshmallow baby Jesus adorable?

Our kids always fight over who gets to say the prayer at meal time (and usually we end up saying it twice...) so I made a little prayer chart so we can take turns.

I wanted to make sure we did this hand-print ornament of each child, so I could remember they use to be small once. Hazel's was tricky-  she kept digging her fingers into the dough, so I had to trace her hand on paper first, then cut it out and use that as a template.  Sadly, some of the lines from the paper got in the dough and hers has little blue lines in it.  Live and learn.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Day

We had a great Christmas this year- poor Iris had to wake up as early as the kids on a Sunday, but she was a good sport about it. :)

Peach loves taking small objects out of containers, so this was right up her alley.

 We started a new tradition this year - the Christmas Pickle.  The pickle ornament gets hidden on Christmas Eve and whoever finds it first on Christmas morning, gets the "pickle prize" :)  (this year a Snickers)

The Pickle Prize winner (with lots of help...)

Peach with her favorite present - her baby

Peach in her Christmas dress

The Frog in his Christmas sweater - Thanks Nanie!

I made this fur hat for Iris- it's a copycat of a cute one we saw at Gap 

The Frog experiencing Pez for the first time

The Kids

I wrapped Peach up in my new scarf.  Doesn't she look like a monk?

I usually end up feeling bad on mutual gift-giving holidays because Jay always seems to think of something amazing.  This year, he gave me a life-time subscription to Ballet West and we went have our first date tomorrow night at The Nutcracker!  I'm sooo excited :)

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and will have a very Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Recipe Fail: salty muffins

I make pancakes probably 3 or 4 times a week for breakfast.  Everyone loves them, me especially, they're easy, they keep me full longer than a lame bowl of cereal, and I feel like they have some nutritional value since I use freshly ground whole wheat flour.  

For the last several months, The Frog gets upset if I don't make him a smiley face one, but lately, he's been really interested in letters and so requests letters.

 Just thought I'd pass along a tip for all you pancake makers who have never delved into the letter pancakes before- If you draw the non-symmetric letters the right way, initially, they will look backwards when you flip them over (and the underside never looks as good).  This means I've had to start perfecting my backwards letters, and now when I do a "J" in the mornings (the most requested letter...) I have to think really hard about what it's supposed to look like!

Iris's stack 'o pancakes.  I'm so glad I finally don't out-eat everyone at breakfast :)

 This is the huge bowl of bran muffin mix that lived in my fridge for a few weeks.  In my family, it's tradition to always eat bran muffins (with lots of butter, and the oranges from our stockings and usually a fritata or some other eggy thing, and maybe bacon) on Christmas morning and this year I decided to do it as well.  As a mom, I can appreciate this tradition because this awesome batter will last in your fridge for up to 6 weeks and still turn out beautifully.  This means you can make the batter the night before and bake them fresh (while opening presents) the morning of :)  (you could even make the batter a week before if you're experiencing a particularly busy Christmas week...)

Well, this is the first year I've tried to make them and I'm not sure what happened when I got the recipe, but I quickly discovered that the Tbl of salt the recipe called for, actually should have been a tsp.  Which means I had to then make an additional double batch (sans salt) to make the muffins palatable.  Which means, we got a LOT of bran muffin mix.  Luckily, they're delicious and the batter lasts a long time.

And finally, I can't believe it, but making the other two batches of muffins used up this giant 6 lb can of Crisco I bought at Costco when we moved here over 3 years ago.  Woah.  That's a lot of Crisco.

Christmas Lights at the Riverwoods

We went to look at the lights at the Riverwoods Shopping Plaza since it's so close, and because they have a Santa you can take pictures with for free.  Unfortunately, there was already a line right when he showed up, and we decided it was too cold and boring to wait.  We had fun just walking around though. :)

loved the light canopies- reminded me of our Utah wedding reception :)

2 More Stockings

I made 3 stockings our first Christmas here, but didn't do it last year for Peach's first Christmas because of the flood.  Now this year, all of a sudden, we have 5 in our family, so I was 2 stockings short.  The two on each end are the new additions :)

Cuteness

Peach has been sporting leg warmers a lot lately.  This was after being stripped for a meal, and I couldn't stand the cuteness: flower tights + leg warmers + crazy hair

 I realized that origami ornaments would also make fabulous gift tags.  Doesn't that kinda look like a cute snowflake?  I wrote "to" "from" on the back.

 Every once-in-awhile I get to witness cutenesses like this:

but not very often, so I savor them when they occur :)

Christmas Train

The Frog being distracted by the nearby coin car "rides"

For family night last night, we went to the Provo mall so the kids could ride the Christmas train (while mom did some last-minute shopping...)

Once he saw the train, he was chasing it and trying to hop on.

 It was kind of a rip-off (says the cheapo) but at least Peach was free :)

Getting ready to go

 I didn't wait for the train to finish loading with passengers before I dashed off to the stores, but when I heard it chuffing by, I ran out for a quick pic.

 Then it was back to the coin cars...

Bananas in pajamas and Peach :)