Friday, December 31, 2010

Lovely Day

Sometimes after the presents are opened and all is said and done...you just get a little down.  It's depressing my love says...when it's over.  Yes, it is sort of a let down.  Yes.  But....

I don't have to go to work till next week, and I can look back at all this.  It's Lovely to me.

Like this.  I had a birthday this month.  I spent the day with my love and the evening with my angels.  


Jesse is not smoking a cigarette.  That would be licking a candle.  Oh, that makes me laugh out loud.


Christmas baking.  Loved capturing it all.  Baking with kids.  It's fun...a little crazy, but definately fun.  We started out with Mrs. Claus' Peppermint Wonders (Chocolate-Mint Brownies that is).  Ahhhhh, melting chocolate and butter.


Roasting the nuts....


Give a kid a wooden spoon and something to crush...instant happiness.


"OK, I need you to crush these candy canes kids."  "OK!"


Well now...you don't bake without letting them lick the spoon now right?  It wouldn't be fair.



Wala.  This was one of my favorite surprise recipes this year.  Never tried them before.  Yum.


Clean the floor!  Just kidding.  I didn't even tell them to do this.


On to the Snowmen.  This was supposed to be easy.  Marshmallows stuck together with a toothpick, pretzels, chocolate chips, a hershey kiss, fruit roll up, yeah, easy.  Oh, but I had to make royal icing to stick the chips to the marshmallow.  Royal icing.  I should have took Jonah's advice.  "We can just lick it and stick it."  Looking back, brilliant.

Jesse tortured the first little guy.


Jonah helped her revive him.  Luckily it didn't require mouth to mouth or else I hate to think what would have happened.


And here we go.  One eyed Willy and his buddy Frosty.  Get this, they enjoyed eating everything but my royal icing.  It was not that good.  Lick it and stick it.  Lick it and stick it.  


On to the naughty recipe.  You have to have something naughty.  Fruit cake cookies might not sound like the best.  But add this... 


and you are sure to get a few smiles.  Jesse girl is not smoking this time, but it looks like she's been in the Brandy...well, at least the flour.


Now, these babies had an entire cup of Brandy in the mix.  An entire cup.  You should have smelled it.  You should have licked it.  


More of the nice now.  Cookies for Santa are my very favorite.  This year the cookies were really good.  The recipe called for almond extract and that is just delicious in a cookie.



The really fun part.



Sometime during the baking day, I checked my email and low and behold...I had a couple of messages for Jonah and Jesse...from Santa's portable North Pole.  Seriously, this was really impressive.  The kids were in a trance.


Jesse's message:


Jonah's message:


I believe Jonah's expression above was a result of Santa telling him to be nicer to his little sister.  And below is the result.  He kept his promise a few hours.


And finally...Christmas Morning.  Santa left quite a mess.


And the simple things were some of their favorite gifts.

A Barbie car.


A notebook to store his Pokemon collection.


"You'll shoot your eye out!"  Love, love, love this movie and it wouldn't be Christmas without it.


And kids.  My favorite gift from Santa was the Scavenger Hunt to find your trampoline.  I just wanted to cry as I watched your little faces light up with every clue and little gift.  I wanted to freeze time.  I never wanted either of you to grow up from this moment.  Santa led you to every tree in the house.  He visited every single one.



Christmas Breakfast.  Now, this is when you go all out.  You buy the good bacon...not the turkey bacon.   You get the thick cut bacon with all the fat.  And you actually cook it in the oven and not the microwave.  This is what my love did.  And it was so good.  I could eat it like candy.  Homemade buttermilk pancakes that make you want to flip.


Man, I wish I had a piece right now.  I didn't realize how much I loved bacon.  Bacon done right that is.


And the good stuff comes a pouring.  Hello.  Good Morning.  This while watching the snow fall on Christmas morning with my family was better than any experience at any fine restaurant.  It's the simple things.  My love should open a restaurant and name it that.


And of course...the icing.


Today we danced in circles playing with our toys and listening to this.

I hope this makes you dance in circles too.  Happy New Year!

2 comments:

  1. Happy Belated Birthday!!! I hope you had a wonderful holiday! Now back to reality tomorrow!
    :(

    ReplyDelete
  2. Where are you???? You didn't come in to work this week.. Are the kids ok??? Heather

    ReplyDelete