Christmas Day

Guess what Santa brought this year?

Legos! Well actually Santa brought a Lego table to use with the Legos that Tyler got from Grandpa. It's really cute...it's a 2 ft square table with drawers that have hanging mesh bags for storage. My favorite part is that the table top is double sided. One side has the green Lego base, but you can flip that piece over to have a smooth wooden top for doing school work or other activities.

Besides Lego's, Tyler also received several game boards, some erector sets, some books (cookbooks and chapter books), and some new crayons and markers.

Anni was with us this year, which made everything a little more special. It's always nice when family members are able to make the trek up here.

After opening all the presents, Rick and I headed into the kitchen to get started on the dinner.

We made a turkey breast and a spiral cut ham with all the trimmings....mashed potatoes, stuffing, deviled eggs, sweet potatoes, Anni's spinach artichoke dip, cranberry sauce and so on. For dessert I made a pumpkin cheesecake with a gingersnap crust.

The food was delicious and super filling!

After that, it was back to playing with our loot. Well, more like Tyler's loot....board games and Legos ruled the night.

Snowman Cookies

Last month when I got my Best of Country Cooking Annual 2008, I immediately marked several recipes to try. One of them was the poppy seed coffee cake that I tried a few weeks ago and another was snowman cookies.

First you start by making sandwiches out of Ritz crackers and peanut butter.

Then you dip them into melted white chocolate candy coating and decorate the faces. I was completely inept when it came to dipping the crackers into the chocolate. It certainly sounds easier than it really is. I ended up giving the job to Anni who did much better using a pair of tongs and a silicone spoon. So with Anni dipping the crackers and Tyler decorating the faces, I had nothing left to do but snack on the leftover candy. What a hard life.

The hardest part was leaving them alone long enough for the chocolate to set up. Tyler wanted to eat one right away. We waited until after dinner to sample our delights and everyone agreed that they were quite tasty!

Weekend News

Yesterday we took Tyler over to Lowe's to build the final project for the year...a pet treat keeper. He's been really independent lately and wants to do practically everything by himself. His building project was no exception....he was determined to do it all by himself. He wouldn't even let me hold it while he hammered!

Well I guess he knows what he's doing because it came out great. It must be meant to hold large dog biscuits, though, because the drop slot on the inside is huge! Hmmm, I'm pretty sure it won't work to hold our cat treats. That's too bad.

Afterwards we stopped at Borders to use my 30% off coupon on a new Christmas book. It turns out we were just in time for storytime. Actually, it may have just been a craft event. At any rate, Tyler made a reindeer hat and had free cookies and chocolate milk.

Back to the books, Tyler ended up picking out a Thomas the Train Christmas book. We were also looking at the chapter books, but it's a little hard finding something that's geared towards boys and that has age appropriate material. It seems like they're all mystery books. I should probably check the library and see what they have first.

In the kitchen this weekend, I made Apple Gingerbread Muffins.

They turned out really good and were a nice change from the usual bran and banana breads I always make. The only downfall is that I used practically all of my molasses, which I was planning on using for cookies. Oh, well. Once I get a new jar I'll be able to make the cookies and a second batch of muffins, yum!

What a Week!

Wow! I'm so glad this week is finally over! Getting around in the snow has been something else! In years past, I've had the option to stay home when it snowed, but now that Tyler's in school, I have no choice but to get out there with the rest of them.

Tuesday was the worst, the day that the snow was fresh. When I went to pick up Tyler from school, I ended up getting stuck more than once. We had already established that morning that the driveway to his school was too slick to drive up, so I had to find a place to park and walk to get him. I decided to go with the Senior Center across the street, which was fine until we got stuck trying to leave the parking lot. I can't even describe my embarrassment. One guy drove up next to me and proceeded to tell me that I needed to straighten out the wheels. Then someone came out from the Senior Center to try and give me a push (an employee, not a senior...that would have been too much). I even had a guy stop his truck in the street to come see if I needed any help.

The next few days got progressively better. There was no more snow so I just had to deal with the leftover ice on the roads. I even found a much better place to park...a nearby dental office. My next biggest obstacle was just getting Tyler to school on time. It's not the quickest process in the world getting him into his snowsuit, boots, and gloves every morning.

The week wasn't all bad though, we still had a few highlights. Rick and I had our first parent/teacher conference. We were pleased to find out that Tyler is one of the stronger students in the class as he routinely works at a kindergarten level or beyond. He has even started reading chapter books.

And the artwork he brings home...sometimes I just can't stand it. I am in love with the stocking he made this week.

Couldn't you just eat it up?

Well, how about some cookies instead.

Rick actually told me that my snowball cookies "were not his ideal Christmas cookie". Hmph! I thought they were good! To him, a cookie is not a cookie unless it includes chocolate chips. So to please the chocolate loving boys of the house, I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies from my King Arthur Cookie Companion. They were pretty good...just not my ideal Christmas cookie!

Right On Cue

I was just saying to Rick the other day, "I wonder when's it going to snow already". It was starting to feel a little funny doing all the Christmas shopping with no snow around. The two seem to go hand in hand around here, so I've been expecting the white stuff to appear any time now. It snowed a little bit the week before Thanksgiving, but it melted quickly and that was the last we saw until last night.

We awoke this morning to a fresh coating of snow. Rick was actually scheduled to fly out of town early this morning, but due to the weather, the flight was cancelled and rescheduled for later in the morning. That worked for me. I was able to get Rick's help shoveling the driveway while I got Tyler ready for school.

Sounds like work shoveling 5" of snow off the driveway, but it was a breeze with Rick's new electric snow blower. Apparently he was the envy of the neighborhood this morning. I think a few of our neighbors might be running out to get their own.

In no time at all Rick had the driveway cleared out and since he was home and awake, he drove Tyler to school this morning, which is usually my job. Turns out our car is slightly inadequate when it comes to snow. Although the road to Tyler's school was plowed, it was too steep of a hill for the car. Tyler and I had to get out at the base of the driveway and walk up the hill to the school. Nice. I think we need to trade our car in for something with 4-wheel drive.

Weekend Rewind

This past Saturday, we took Tyler to Lowe's for their Build and Grow Clinic. They actually have three projects this month instead of the usual two, which is nice because Tyler can't seem to get enough of them. This time the kids were making a set of Christmas tree ornaments.

I'm not sure which part Tyler likes best...the hammering, or the application of the stickers at the end.

The ornaments he made were a picture frame and a Christmas tree. Our tree at home is really starting to fill up with all the handmade ornaments that Tyler has made at school and at these weekend clinics. I like it.

Then we spent the better part of the day browsing the mall and other stores looking for Christmas presents or otherwise good deals. I stopped by Toys R Us looking for a mini skateboard that was in the ad for $10, but of course they were all sold out, except for the girlie patterns, that is. Somehow I don't think Tyler would be excited to ride a Barbie or iCarly skateboard. We also stopped by Fred Meyer because they had a coupon for Buy 1 Get 1 Free on athletic shoes. After trying on countless pairs of running shoes, I decided on a couple pairs of Avias. Turns out they were on clearance, unmarked of course, so my coupon was no good, as it excluded clearance items. So I ended up buying one pair at the clearance price. Ugh, what a bunch of stupid luck.

For dinner I made Paprika Chicken with Egg Noodles, a recipe I saw on the Rachael Ray show.

I omitted the pickle topping and just used fresh parsley instead of all the other herbs. I thought it tasted great, but Tyler wasn't much of a fan. I hate it when that happens. And here I thought I'd found something good enough to enter our regular roation.

Holiday Spirit

The advent calendar I got Tyler this year counts down instead of up, which is a good thing, because now I can easily see how many days are left until Christmas. When I saw that there were only 15 days left, I realized that I'd better get things in gear if I planned on baking any holiday cookies this year. So in between loads of laundry and assembling Christmas cards, I managed to churn out a small, yet delicious batch of snowball cookies.

I tried to make them more festive as seen here, by adding colored sprinkles to the powdered sugar, but somehow they didn't turn out as nice. Hmmm, I'm sure that has nothing to do with me.

Then after dinner, Tyler had his much anticipated Winter Concert. All the kids from the two Montessori schools, toddlers thru 8th graders, put on a show that included singing, playing of instruments, and a short play.

The preschool and kindergarten classes stood together and sang around 5 different songs. Here they are singing the Alphabet Rap.

That really must have wiped them out because they had to sit down to sing the second song.

Overall, it was an enjoyable night although we had to leave early since Tyler was having a hard time sitting through the rest of the performances. That was fine by me, because I had a nice hot mug of hot cocoa calling my name back at the house.