Happy New Year! My two youngest guys helped me make a Fairytale Cake yesterday with our new cake pan we got for Christmas.
I thought I would share the video. ENJOY, and go make something fun with your kids today!

Do you have any big New Year’s Eve plans? My boys have been asking all year “When is the day we get to stay up really really late?” I’m not sure the three year old will make it, but the other two we let stay up last year for the first time, so of course that is what is expected now. We’ll probably let Dane stay up for awhile and see how crabby he gets. Should be fun huh? My husband says caffine and sugar should do the trick.

Do you have any food traditions for New Years? We don’t really, although things like chips and dip an sub sandwiches pop into my mind. I was browsing online and found these New Years Recipes that look really yummy. I might have to try the meatballs - they look really good, get good reviews and can even be made ahead of time. Sounds perfect to me! If you have a favorite recipe for New Years please post it in the comments below for all to enjoy.

I wish you a wonderful New Years and I look forward to sharing recipes, cooking tips and more with you in 2008!

Christine

Hey, hows’ it going? I hope you had an enjoyable and relaxing Christmas. My husband is on vacation this week, and of course the kids are home from school, so we are continuing to enjoy leisurely days. I think tomorrow we’ll head out of town for the day for some fun. We can’t stay home and be lazy ALL week… Well… I probably could but the kids would go completely stir crazy.

So, are you tired of leftovers yet? I think I have pretty much had my fill of ham and mashed potatoes. Someone gave us a really nice Honey Baked 9 pound ham. It is delicious, but after 3 days I am ready for something different. I think I’ll freeze the rest probably, although Matt & Christian still say they would like to eat some more before I freeze it. I personally need to return to the diet I was attempting before Christmas.

Did you get anything fun for Christmas? I got one of those Flip Video Cameras - way cool, a Garmin GPS Thing for my Car, and my husband told me I could hire a housekeeper. Lots of other little fun things as well. So obviously I made out pretty well. I must have been good this year.

Well, I have a bit more work to do, and them I’m crawling into bed. Have a great uh… almost weekend I guess. I can’t even keep track of the days when we’re on vacation. LOL

Take Care,
C-

How’s it going? I just wanted to take a moment to wish you a Very Merry Christmas! I finally finished wrapping the presents this morning, the house is ALMOST clean… and the menu is ALMOST planned. Getting close! I think we will open presents Christmas Eve day. That seems to work the best for us. Then everyone can play with their new “toys” before going to church for Christmas Eve. Otherwise we come home from church and it is almost bed time and if we open them then the kids would for sure not want to ever go to bed. We could open them Christmas Day after church…. but we prefer that to be a more relaxing day. So that’s the plan at the moment. Of course Santa Comes Christmas morning.

All of our snow is almost gone. We are supposedly supposed to get a bit more tonight, but less than an inch. It was a warm 52 degrees here today, so we got the yard cleaned up a bit and Matt worked quite a bit on the tree house (which was supposed to be done by Christmas…) I think it will be pretty much done except the roof. Such is life I guess.

I wish you a wonderful holiday!

Christine

Well, of course the kids are just about over their colds now and once again abounding in energy and mom and dad are sick. Matt and I were chatting last night and we concluded that he is a total whiner when he’s sick (no we didn’t dine without whine last night) and I get really grumpy when I’m sick. So when we’re both sick… yeah you can probably picture it. Our poor kids. LOL Personally, I don’t think I would be so grumpy if he wasn’t so whiny, but I could be wrong. He just said he thinks I’m ultra-sensitive to complaining… well, yeah maybe so when I have three little boys who give me their share of complaining all day long - I mght be ultra-sensitive to his complaining because well… he’s an ADULT. LOL Anyway hopefully we’ll be recovered to our happy selves again soon.

Did you get hit by the snowstorm? It seems half the country did. We got about 6-7 inches I think. It is kind of hard to tell as it was blowing so much and drifting. They ended up cancelling church Sunday morning because even though the snow plows were out, the drifts would return to the road shortly after they went through. That was kind of strange being home Sunday morning (since Matt is the pastor and all). It was a nice break though.

The older boys have school through Friday and then have two full weeks off from school. It will be nice to have them home - just have to keep them entertained so they aren’t fighting all the time. BOYS. If they get bored fighting seems to be the entertainment of choice. I never have quite understood that - guess cause I’m not a boy.

Well, I probably need to go work on Mt. Laundry. I hope you’re having a great week!

Christine

I feel accomplished… I spent ALL day wrapping all the gifts that we need to ship to friends & family, then boxing them up, adding postage from online and setting them by the side door. My carrier pick-up is scheduled for tomorrow. You know what that means? I successfully did ALL of my Christmas shopping online and I didn’t even have to leave the house to ship my packages. Pretty nifty. My mail carrier is going to love me tomorrow. Thankfully she is a friend (or was..) LOL Hopefully she’ll have room in her litte rural route jeep to fit them all. So after $139.42 in postage later (Thank goodness for flat rate boxes or it would have been much worse)… I am done… - with that anyway. We won’t talk about Christmas cards yet.

The boys have been fighting a cold and I think I finally started succombing to it this evening as well. It’s a weird one… Sore Throats, a little runny nose & cough, but TONS of eye discharge. Blech. I thought perhaps it was pink eye, but their eyes never really got red, and Ryan and Christian seem to be almost over it. They said their eyes didn’t hurt or itch at all, but they sure had yucky stuff coming out of them - especially in the morning and evening. Dane is still fighting it a bit and he does say his eyes hurt periodically… so we’ll see what I’m in for. I might have to haul Dane and I off to the Dr. tomorrow - we’ll see. I hate getting sick right before the weekend - there aren’t walk-in clinics around here… Hopefully we can keep Matt healthy with Christmas just around the corner.

Tomorrow night is Ryan & Christian’s big school Christmas Musical, so we can’t miss that for anything. They have been practicing soooo hard and are extremely excited!

Do any of you have internet security programs for kids? We are thinking of giving our 7 year old internet access as part of his Christmas present, but we of course want to have it filtered and monitored. It looks like there are even programs that turn it off after they have used their alloted time each day. Any Reccomendations?

All right, I think I am off to bed - trying to get rid of this bug.

C-

I am excited to announce that Vita-Mix has just released their latest version - the Vita Mix 5200. If you haven’t read why we love the Vita-Mix, you can here: http://smoothieblends.com/why-we-love-the-vita-mix The great news is that we were able to work out a special deal for FREE 2 Day Shipping on this newest model, but this special is only available Dec. 10th -13th. If you have considered purchasing a Vita-Mix, now is a great time! You won’t be sorry! We LOVE ours! Here is the link to check it out: www.dinewithoutwhine.com/holidayspecial

Christine

Did anyone get in on the Amazon Kitchenaid Mixer deal? I don’t think I have ever seen one that cheap. I was going to come announce it, and by the time I got ready to they were sold out - go figure.

We had a big ice storm today. The temperature hovered just around freezing and it rained and rained and rainined… Needless to say church was pretty empty this morning… Even the short walk from our house to church was treacherous. Apparently most churches in the area cancelled their services. I am guessing school will be late tomorrow morning, but I guess only time will tell. I haven’t heard anything yet.

I think I am finally done Christmas shopping now. PHEW! Now I am just waiting for my flat rate boxes to arrive from USPS so I can get this stuff out the door! Hopefully early this week.

I spent all day Friday shampooing our carpets. It was LONG overdue and much needed. It was a lot of work, but my they look so much better! I told my husband I am not going to guarantee they are completely clean, but I will guarantee they are MUCH cleaner then before.

Today has just been a lazy lay around day, which is nice. Tomorrow night I am hosting my ladies group Christmas Party so I’ll have to clean up a bit, but it’s not too bad at the moment, so that is good.

Not too much else is on the calendar this week except for the boys school Christmas program on Friday.

Have a great week!

I am sitting here at 12:30 p.m. in my red flannel gingerbread man Christmas jammies, drinking hot cocoa. I love Saturdays! It is one of those gray days out - we’re supposed to get some snow/sleet/rain/ice… Whatever happens to fall from the sky this aftenoon. We already had a short 20 min. bout of it and supposedly there is more to come. Matt was going to go out and put up the Christmas lights… but it is COLD so I am guessing that will wait for another (probably cold) day… but cold sounds like a good excuse at the moment, I guess.

I have my couch covered with half wrapped Christmas gifs. Hopefully I will get the rest of those wrapped up and ready to go today. I am getting close to being done with the Christmas shopping stuff… however, I still have the most important ones left.. the kids. Matt is building them a big tree house, so that is their main gift… but of course we always end up spoiling them anyway… I suppose he will have to go out in the COLD to work on that as well. Maybe the weather will cooperate and warm up a bit for us - if the wind would just not blow it would be tolerable.

Are you doing Christmas Cookie Baking this year? We used to make dozens and dozens and dozens of cookies and deliver them to the neighbors- it was so much fun. However, now that Matt is a pastor (and we live in a complete rural area) we have no need to make cookies… We are blessed with more then we can handle by the all the wonderful ladies of the church. I am trying to do Weight Watchers, so I will have to be extra disciplined (which is not my strong point). Anyway, for those of you who are doing Christmas Cookie Baking, Exchanges etc. I thought I would share my favorite Christmas Cookie Recipe:

Scandinavian Almond Bars
Makes 4 Dozen

1 3/4 C. All Purpose Flour
2 t. Baking Powder
1/4 t. Salt
1/2 C. Butter
1 C. Sugar
1 Egg
1/2 t. Almond Extract
Milk
1/2 C Sliced Almonds

Almond Icing:
Stir together 1 C. sifted powdered sugar, 1/4 t. almod extract and enough milk (3-4 t.) to make icing of drizzling consistency.

Stir together four, bakign powder, and salt. In a large mixing bowl beat butter until softened. Add sugar and beat tll fluffy. Add egg and almond extract and beat well. Add flour mixure and beat till well mixed.

Divide dough into fourths. Form each into a 12″ roll. Place two rolls 4-5 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten till 3 inches wide. Repeat with remaining rolls.

Brush flattened rolls with milk and sprinkle with almonds. Bake in a 325 degree oven for 12-14 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. While cookies are still warm, cut them crosswise at a diagonal into 1″ strips. Cool. Drizzle with Almond Icing.

Please share your favorite Christmas Cookie Recipe in the comments area for other to enjoy!