Snowed in for Christmas

We had a fun and quiet Christmas Eve at home. As is our family tradition we started with a reenactment of the Nativity. Each child picks a part and is given 5 minutes to find some sort of costume. I've included a picture of Ruth as the Angel and Kaitlin as Mary at the Enuciation. Ruth is quite the actress.

The rest of the evening was full of good food, crafts and games. Our family's favorite game is PIT and yes, we got in a few rounds right before bed.



We woke up to a blizzard Christmas morning. A real out and out blizzard that blew and blew until well past noon. We had to cancel our plans to visit my parents that day but we didn't mind so much. We had a great day playing with our new toys and enjoying a quiet Christmas day as a family.

The snow drifted up four feet against our house. Chuck and I shoveled, and Chaz helped a bit too. Later that day our Bishop called and asked Chuck and Chaz to join a neighborhood shoveling brigade organized by our church. They spent a couple of hours shoveling out the homes of people that needed it. Oh yeah! We were really feeling the Christmas spirit.

The next day we finally made it to my parents house. A drive that usually takes us a little less then 2 hours took us 3 hours that day. The highway was packed with snow and ice and we counted 14 skid offs or accidents along the way.

We enjoyed a fun day there visiting with family. Playing Apples to Apples, eating and the kids went sledding.


I don't know if it was the shoveling or wii boxing but my shoulders were almost immovable the day after Christmas. A sign of ageing for sure.

Let's Hear from You!

I got this idea from Kaitlin's blog. You come here to read about us, but we would love to hear more from you. So if you have a minute, please take time to answer some questions.

1)What is your favorite Christmas treat? (would you share the recipe if you have one?)

2)What are you doing for Christmas eve?

3)What fun thing did you do this holiday that you really enjoyed?


To show good faith I will now answer these questions.

1)I love to make toffee every Christmas. I have my very own original recipe and yes I'll share it with you at the end of this post.

2)We are planning Christmas Eve at home with the kids. Each child gets to choose one activity that we enjoy and we will spend the evening doing those things.

3)The funnest thing I personally did this Christmas was to sing the Messiah. The kids say that they've enjoyed making Christmas Candy (they didn't enjoy the Messiah so much).


Happy Birthday Jared!

Thursday was Jared's birthday. We celebrated by eating is favorite dinner (Hawaiian Haystacks), eating chocolate cake, and going to Chaz's piano recital.









Chaz's Piano Recital




Paper Craft instructions Coming Soon

Several of you asked for instructions on how to make the paper "palms" and the hat. It would be kind of tricky to type out instructions so I decided that I'll make you an instruction video some time this week. So check back!


Buttery English Toffee

1 lb. Butter
2 c Sugar
1/2 c Water
2 T Light Corn Syrup
1/2 c Almond powder*
8 oz Chocolate Bar
Chopped walnuts, pecans or almonds (optional)

Butter a cookie sheet or dripper pan, set aside. Butter sides of a heavy 2 quart saucepan. In saucepan melt butter, add sugar, water, corn syrup and almond powder. Bring to boiling. Clip candy thermometer to pan. Cook and stir constantly over medium heat until 290, soft-crack stage (15-20 mins.) Mixture will turn brown, be extra careful after 280 to make sure it doesn’t scorch. Pour mixture into pan. Let stand 5 mins. Sprinkle top with small chocolate pieces. Let stand 2 mins until chocolate melts. Spread chocolate, sprinkle with nuts. Chill until firm.

*Optional. This is the "“secret ingredient" in my toffee. Also, you will probably not find powdered almonds at the store. I buy almond pieces and blend them in the blender.

Note: Toffee must be loved like a child. It takes constant attention and patience. Make sure you have 30 mins undisturbed time before you begin. Once you start, there is no stopping until it is finished.

Holiday Band Concert

Chaz's holiday concert was great! Their last band concert was over 2 hours long and this one was only 45 minutes. But that wasn't the only reason it was great. Chaz is doing a really good job on trumpet (and we hope he decides to stick with it). For those of you not able to attend (all of you) you can listen to a short clip below. The clip is "Sleigh Ride" which is one of my favorites.

I love blogging! It helps us all be a little more connected.

I also sang in another concert on Sunday. This one was for Stake Christmas Sing along. (For those of you that don't speak "mormon" a stake is a group of congregations. In our case, our stake has 8 local congregations.) There was a large choir and a small orchestra. It turned out very nice.

Christmas is Coming

It is amazing on how quickly Christmas is coming. I've realized that just because I have so many hours to do things in, it does not mean that I can do everything in those hours. My mind can only be high functioning for so many hours in the day. I tell myself that I can just cut out my facebook time or reading time and then I can get this or that thing done. But it isn't true. I just can't seem to mentally stay "on" that long in a day. I hope this is also true of the rest of you - or maybe I'm just dysfunctional in that way.

The picture to the right is my Gaudy Ball Wreath II and it is my favorite Christmas decoration. I've often considered hanging it somewhere year round and even did that for awhile with Gaudy Ball Wreath I (which had a flawed construction so it only lasted 3 years before giving up the ghost). It is constructed on a wire wreath with a cotton stuffed tube in the middle. Green floral wire is run around the ring every 2 inches with Christmas balls threaded on the wire. I'm not sure how many Christmas balls, perhaps 300? Anyway, I love this wreath and wanted to share it with you.

Fun with Newspaper

Today Jared wanted a project. This is one I grew up doing. Isn't it amazing what you can do with 7 sheets of newspaper and 10 inches of tape? My mother is fantastically creative. What makes her creativity extra special is that her crafts/activities were always made from little or no money. I guess that is the only way to raise many kids on one income. Thanks Mom for passing on a portion of your gift to me and my children!

You Are Invited to a Lego Party

Jared had an early birthday party on Friday. This was his first "friends" party ever and he was very excited. His friends had fun building with legos, playing games and running an obstacle course in the back yard (I love 40's in December!).

I made his birthday cake. If you can't tell, it is a red lego brick, with two bionicles fighting on top of it.




I twisted balloons for the kids at the party. Every kid, even the girls, wanted a sword. Those are easy to twist so I was okay with that. The swords were the hit of the party, all-be-it noisy.








Who wrote Handel's Messiah?

Okay, so the title is a joke but Becky did sing in our community's Messiah choir on Friday. The choir sang highlights of the Messiah, followed by a sing along and then a visit from Santa and cookies.



Our choir was humble, but full of spirit. (I added a red arrow so you can tell which one is me) I sang in the choir with my old friend Kristen (see blog link to left). She is the one who turned me on to singing the Messiah almost 10 years ago so, thank you Kristen.

Our director, Michelle, just won the Relief Society music awards for 2008, so it was cool to be working with an up and coming LDS composer.

My new favorite Cookie Recipe.

Step aside Iris Moon! a new cookie has stolen my heart. This is a chocolate chocolate chip recipe came from allrecipes.com and is easy, has simple ingredients and is sooo yummy!

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

DIRECTIONS:
1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2.In large bowl, beat butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt; stir into the butter mixture until well blended. Mix in the chocolate chips and walnuts. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3.Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or just until set. Cool slightly on the cookie sheets before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

Chuck felt left out of the last elf video so I made one just for him :o) Love ya honey!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Thanksgiving

Ruth and I started Thanksgiving by joining a neighborhood "fun run" for the local Food Bank. What Ruth and I didn't know going into it was that the fun run was actually a 3 mile run, one and a half miles down, and then one and a half miles up. Undaunted, Ruth road her bike and I ran. We finished in a little over 45 minutes. It was a beautiful morning in the low 40's and it has just finished raining so the air was moist and cool. Although I was tired (and my legs ached the rest of the day) I was glad we did it.

We drove up to the farm where my parents live and spent Thanksgiving with them. All my other siblings had other obligations so we had the whole holiday to ourselves. We made a table cloth using block prints, then we went on a hike up the mountainside and the kids collected treasures. After a very nice dinner we wrapped up the evening cutting snowflakes to decorate my mother's house. It's a family tradition and every year we all try to out-do what was done the year before. While we were cutting snowflakes, Chuck set up the digital boxes on all their TVs. All-in-all a very fine and relaxed holiday.

Chaz and I cutting out snowflakes.














Grandma cutting Jared's favorite Thanksgiving food.















Jared and Ruth showing off the coolest thing they collected on their mountain walk - bones!















We would like to apologize to anyone who might be offended by our thanksgiving hats.


Black Friday

Yes, Chuck and I braved the black friday sales but we didn't get up until 8am. Off to Walmart we went and scrounged down some deals with the other thousand shoppers. By the time we got out of Walmart (unscathed I might add) we headed over to Target for one particular gift. Upon arrival we learned that the thing we were seeking were sold out. Disappointed we headed over to the Christmas tree area to buy a new tree (we tossed ours out last year "I'm not going to duct tape this thing again another year" I said in my wrath). As we wheeled our large tree box to the front to check out I saw an employed pulling a cart loaded with returns for restocking. Looking closely as we passed by I saw it! The thing that we wanted that was sold out. I chased the employee down through the crowd looking at $5 DVDs (pardon me, excuse me, pardon me), and finally getting the employee's attention asked if I could have something out of her cart. "Sure" she said "one less thing I have to shelve." Score!!!

Hair Cut

I got my bi-annual hair cut this week. The lady that does my hair always blows it straight to be sure she got everything even. This woman has some secret hero power with hair because I, for the life of me, can't ever get my hair to go this straight. Anyway, I'm including a picture for any that were wondering what I look like with straight hair.