December 16- Make Christmas Cookies

Some day are just busier than others and this was one of them.  Actually, I'm not sure that today was busy, it was just difficult.  Gideon is having a difficult time teething which means that I am not getting much sleep at all.  Oh well, the day keeps going and I keep going with it.

Today we read the parable of the sower from Luke 5:5-16.  We learn here that Jesus taught with stories, and why he taught with stories.  It is a very effective method for those who are willing and ready to learn.

For our activity we made Christmas cookies.  At first I planned to let the kids cut out shaped and everything, but I was exhausted!  So instead we tried another new method.  We rolled red and white dough out and then rolled it up together.  I should have chilled the dough first.  I'll do better next time.

They came out really well though, very soft and delicious because almond sugar cookies are just the best.

Lily was happy with them.

And Charlotte couldn't be bothered to smile, she was too busy eating.

And yes, it isn't unusual for my kids to wear dress-up clothes over their pajamas.

December 13- Making Homemade Candy Canes

This morning started earlier than it should have.  It seems like once every 2 weeks or so Gideon decides so wake up for the day before 4 am.  It is exhausting!  I get a lot done in those early morning hours, but by early afternoon I'm so tired!  I had planned today's activity for quite some times, but I was seriously reconsidering given how early my day started.

To make the best of things we got started on our advent activity earlier than usual.  We read from Matthew 5:2-16 which is a portion of the Sermon on the Mount.  Not only do we learn what Jesus wants us to do, but this shows Him as a teacher, and a great one at that.

For our activity we had planned to make homemade candy canes.  I decided to go for it and got everything together.  Lily helped with adding the ingredients to the pan.

 Charlotte preferred to stir.

 And Gideon sat next to me looking cute.

 Seriously, look at those big eyes, he's so cute I could seriously devour this kid.

 Well...I stepped away for a minute, and as anyone who makes candy knows, that is a bad idea.  I swear that the thermometer was at 250 degrees when I walked away and when I got back it was at 320 degrees,  That's a problem when you are supposed to remove them from heat at 280.  So, I poured the burnt sugar into an old jam jar that I could just throw away, because seriously, what else was I going to do with it, and then started over.  Whoops.

 The second time I watched the thermometer like a hawk and boy was it BORING!  It took ages.  But eventually we got there, I poured it out and added the coloring and flavoring.  I had intended to make a green stripe too, but I grabbed the red food coloring because I wasn't paying attention so I had 2 batches of red instead of one.  Whoops.  I tell you, I need sleep.

 I worked it all together and low and behold, it eventually looked like candy cane material.  I started putting it all together a bit too early though.  If I make them again, which I probably will, I will wait until it is a little cooler.

 I cut it into strips and the girls ran with them from the counter to the kitchen table and shaped them into all sorts of things.

 They were pretty proud of all of their candy canes.

 They turned out pretty well, not too bad for the first go around, even with a burnt batch.

If you'd like the recipe and tutorial I found this one here.

Camping at Alturus Lake

We spent a few days last week up at Alturus Lake with our friends the Jenkins family.  We arrived Friday evening and got to work setting up camp while the kids scampered about.  The kids ran about, climbed over logs, created their own games, and helped gather and cut firewood.

We ate so well on this camping trip!  Candice and I are both planners so we had our menu planned so that almost everything was prepared before we left so that while there we just cooked.  I'm not sure that we washed more than 5 dishes in the 3 days that we were there.  Camping burritos, dutch oven chicken and cobbler, fruit pies, roasted hot dogs, it was great!  And of course pancakes, pancakes are best when camping.

The lake water was COLD!  I haven't been to Alturus in nearly 20 years, but I remembered very clearly just how cold the water was.  That's okay, the kids enjoyed fishing and playing the sand.  Karina helped Lily finally figure out casting and she ended up doing really well, getting 20 foot casts which is pretty good for a 4-year-old.

Charlotte got her first fishing pole for this trip and can't quite cast yet, but sure does like reeling it in.

See that blue plastic fish on the end of her pole?  That acts as a weight for them to practice casting.  Well, one time when Candice cast for her it went flying into the water...off of the line.  So Candice and I went into the freezing water, chest deep, to retrieve the blue plastic fish.

Back at the cam sites the kids climbed all over the logs.  I'm amazed at just how much time they spent doing this without getting bored.  Charlotte wasn't overly confident walking on the logs, so she crawled along.

Lily likes to follow Karina around.

I'm pretty impressed with her balance.

King of the stump!

Bruce and Lily playing with a lighter...maybe not our best parenting moment.

 No camping trip is complete without s'mores (and a nice poke to the eye while playing with sticks)

 Good stuff!

We had a few visitors to our camp site.  This deer spent a while running around the camp ground.

There was also this skinny little black fox that roamed around one morning.

We had a lot of squirrels popping in and out of holes all around our site.

Gideon did very well.  Camping with a 2 month old is pretty easy because he mostly ate and slept.  We made sure to bring our bouncy chair so that we had a place for him to rest so that he didn't have to be held all day long and it was great to have.  Even with a hat and keeping him in the shade he still managed to get a little sun burnt on his face.

Charlotte still loves her brother!

Getting Things Organized

I like to cook and I'm a little bit obsessive compulsive. I like things organized and I function best when I have systems set up.  I've been making menus and planning our meals since we were first married, and sometimes I do better at it than others.  I also love to try new recipes.  I have more cookbooks than I could ever use and yet I still spend a lot of time online looking for recipes and ideas.  I've ended up with so many sheets printed off all over my kitchen counters and menus written on shopping lists on the fridge and I finally decided to buckle down and organize it all.  This is what I have come up with:

I started with a binder, just an ordinary binder, some plastic sheets, and dividers.  I found this cute cover the binder here (she also has several other color options).  I went online and printed out a calendar for the year, that's right, all of 2012.  I found this particular calendar here.  You should have seen Tyson's face when I told him that I was printing off an entire calendar for menu planning, poor guy thought that I was crazy enough to plan out our meals for the entire year all at once!  I put all twelve pages in one sheet protector, that way I can see two months at a time, but I also have past months to refer back to for ideas.  We tend to get stuck in a rut and repeat meals so this way I can see when we last ate something so that I can space them out better.

Before filling in any spaces I went over our normal calendar and made adjustments for days that we would not be eating at home, like date nights or time out of town.  Then I marked our leftover days.  My husband has a crazy schedule so two days a week he is only home for breakfast.  Those days we have leftovers.  I make sure to plan meals that will leave lots of leftovers for the day before our leftover day.  Sunday is also crock pot day in this house because I have such a limited amount of time to get dinner ready between church and the time that Tyson has to leave for work.  I also write down the primary vegetable that I plan to serve with the meal, one less thing to think about when it is time to grocery shop or cook.  With these things in mind, I turn to my meal ideas list and then fill in the calendar.  My list continues on to the back and keeps growing.  No more meal ruts for us!

 The meal ideas list is a lifesaver, it will save you so much time and frustration with your menu planning.  I made a list a few years ago and recently updated it with new favorites.  To make the list I went through my favorite cookbooks and printed recipes and wrote down the names of all of the recipes that we have tried and would like to make again.  I wrote today's date in the corner and as we try new recipes I'll write them on the list and every few months I'll add them to the doc and reprint it.  This is my current list of meal ideas if you want to some ideas.  And if you would like any of the recipes just shoot me an email, I love to share!  No secret recipes here!  

Behind the meal idea list I have my recipes.  No, I didn't type out the recipes from my cookbooks, I'm not that nuts.  This binder organizes the recipes that I find online or friends give me.  I like having systems for things and loose recipe cards and sheets of paper, pages take out of cooking magazines just make me crazy!  I type them up, and put them in sheet protectors, organized by category.  I use the sheet protectors for 2 reason; first they keep the recipe clean, and second, because I can keep things in alphabetical order.  I love having things in alphabetical order, they are so easy to find that way.  I've seen a lot of people just put the recipes that they printed off or clipped from a magazine right into sheet protectors and that would work great, but my OCD wants them all to be uniform in typeface and format so I retype them.

 Isn't that so nice and clean?  I love it!  I have to admit, I am way too excited about this binder!  My husband can't quite understand my excitement, but I'm sure that there are others out there who can.

December 21: Make Christmas Candy

 Christmas is getting so close, and even though my list of things to do is getting shorter and shorter, there are still some major projects that need to be finished in the next few days.  I'm not stressing out though, everything will get finished in time.

Today's advent activity was one that I grew up doing with my family, and that was to make Christmas candy.

Today when we were done reading about what our activity would be Lily jumped up and yelled "scrip" which is "scriptures" and ran to get daddy's scriptures so that we could read our Christmas scripture for the day.

In past years we have made more things, but we simplified a bit this year and just made caramels and fudge.

Because of the nature of this project, the girls couldn't participate to much, but Lily was happy to be there, and of course to lick the spoon when we were all done.

 I let Lily help me make today's pizza dough though, since she loves helping me add items to the mixer.  We had BBQ chicken pizza for lunch on a bianca crust, Tyson's favorite pizza, and boy was it yummy!  Totally worth the 3 hours to make the crust.

December 20: Make Christmas Cookies

Our calendar has almost disappeared! Only a few more activities and then it will be Christmas! Today's activity was making and decorating Christmas cookies.

Lily loves to help me bake, though up until today she has just stood on her chair and watched. She has started an "I do it!" phase and wanted to help. Her first job was to hold the mixer, not that it needed to be held, but it made her happy to "help".

I let her add a few ingredients and she loved it! Until she poured the flour all over the counter top, but such is life when baking with toddlers.

Our first cookies were Lemon Crinkle cookies that I found on Pinterest. I made them last week just to test out the recipe and they were so good I decided that we needed to make them again.  You must try them!!!  Once we had to the dough made I set everything up.

I rolled the balls and Lily helped me set them on the tray to bake.

While the lemon cookies baked it was time to roll out and cut the sugar cookies. My Lily, being her mother's child, first had to get out all of the cookie cutters, identify the shape, and sort them out.

It took her a few tries, but she figured out how to use the cookie cutters.

She was a little confused when the cookie dough got stuck in them though.

While the sugar cookies baked and cooled my girls played peek-a-boo in my cupboards.

Finally it was time to frost the sugar cookies.

Lily was very serious about frosting her cookie, and even more serious about eating the frosting off of her cookie.

Charlotte participated by eating a cookie and trying to get her hands on many many more.

These are our finished lemon crinkle cookies, forgive the bad pictures, my kitchen has terrible lighting.

Our delicious sugar cookies!