This & That

OK...Just One More

Just one post before I take my break.

We traditionally make sugar cookies sometime during the Christmas season. How this goes really depends on who's home. If any of my boys are in attendence, things can get a little interesting. Here are SD Boy and his cute wife.

And The Girl working hard at making a red and white striped candy cane.

And my poor, tired husband who was up at 6 with me warming 3 gallons of butter syrup to take to the church breakfast on this morning....this was last Saturday. And here are some of the resulting cookies.

A Halloween snowflake.

A snowman with ninja stars in him.

Yeah. Guy-themed sugar cookies. Sort of like Mandles...and if you've seen the YouTube video, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

 

Taking a Break

I'm taking a little blogging break for a few days. We are headed to the cabin and then to Utah to visit family.

We had a wonderful Christmas Day, the best part of which was talking to PB. It was good....really good.

Back next week.

It's Christmas Eve

Hopefully the stockings are hung by the chimney with care, the gifts are wrapped, and those you care about most are close to you. 

Every Christmas Eve, part of our tradition includes reading the story of Christ's birth from the New Testament. We also sing Christmas carols, because music has always been a huge part of our lives together. Here's a little Christmas Eve music for you.

 

Chocolate Candy Cane Kiss Cookies

Ah, the magic of Pinterest....I pinned this recipe from the Six Sisters' Stuff website to try this Christmas. And then I actually looked through my pins and made it. Sometimes things do come together. Liked these a lot and they may replace our regular peanut blossoms in the holiday rotation.

 Chocolate Candy Cane Kiss Cookies Recipe:

(Makes about 4 dozen cookies)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 teaspoon peppermint extract
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 (10 ounce) package Hershey's Candy Cane Kisses, unwrapped

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a large mixing bowl, cream together softened butter, shortening, brown sugar and granulated sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs and vanilla.  In a separate bowl, combine baking powder, baking soda, salt, flour and cocoa powder.  Add to the butter/sugar mixture and combine.  Fold in chocolate chips.  Chill dough in the refrigerator for 30-60 minutes to avoid cookies from flattening. (I only chilled mine for 30 minutes and they did go a little flat...but they tasted good.)

After your dough has chilled, drop by rounded tablespoons onto an ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake for 8 minutes or until set up but the centers are still soft.  Let the cookies cool for 1-2 minutes.  Top each cookie with an unwrapped Candy Cane Kiss.  Allow to cool long enough for the Kisses to harden.

Can I Really Eat Santa?

Ollie waiting for Santa....

Not really. My husband is actually standing behind me talking to Ollie about ducks. He tolerates me....me who lets him in the house and gives him treats, me who takes him out to use the "facilities". Yes, he tolerates me, but he worships my husband.

Elves at Work

SD Boy and his wife are in residence for the holiday.

It's nice to have them home.

Along with The Girl, they are hard at work creating this and that, which is fun to watch. SD Boy is making a prototype of some slippers that he wants to make for himself and his wife...heavy-duty, fuzzy-on-the-inside slippers that will keep their feet really warm.

The ladies are crocheting various gifty things. They look really nice, but I won't expound on them because they are gifty things.

 

New.

Adding to the Nativity collection.

I picked this one up in New Mexico when I was there this spring. Nice, huh?

Winter Ball

Last weekend was the Winter Ball. There was dress drama, in that the dress we had ordered in plenty of time didn't come and didn't come, then when I contacted the place, they hadn't even looked at the order.

Yeah, needless to say, we won't be ordering from them again. We rush ordered another one with less than a week to go, and they really came through. 

Had to tweak it a little, as usual, but in the end I thought she looked really nice.

The Tree

We got the tree decorated last week. With no boys in residence to help DH drape the lights, The Girl and I had to pick up the slack. There's a thing about my husband and tree lights. He likes a ton of them, so getting them on the tree, especially since we have tall ceilings in the living room and usually fairly tall trees...it's a process.

We did part of the lights one night and finished them and put on decorations the next night. 

My daughter decided she wanted to try being up on the ladder getting the lights arranged. I took this shot so you could see exactly how high up she is. DH is 6 feet tall, so yes, we have some high ceilings...and some dead things on the wall taking in the whole spectacle.

And a dog who is totally not interested in the whole process.

The Home Stretch

There are things that are done and things that aren't. 

The cards are out.

I tweaked The Girl's dress for the Winter Ball last weekend.

The high school choir concert is done. Yep, totally crappy photo taken from the very last row of the auditorium with my phone. But the point is that I CAN take it with my phone and at least there's a record of the event...and I'm OK with that.

Oh, and I took this absolutely amazing shot at 12:12 on 12-12-12. Me and the ovens celebrating the occasion.

Just waiting for SD Boy and his wife to make it here today. Baking will ensue.