Breakfast with Santa

For our church party this year, we had a breakfast with Santa. It was a wonderful time. I much prefer it to the evening party last year because Hallie was too exhausted by the time Santa arrived. As we were getting dressed for the party, I asked Hallie what she would tell Santa. She said "I will say 'Thank you for the candy cane!'" She remembered that was what Santa gave her last year when she sat on his lap. That daughter of ours has an incredible memory. She was barely two when that happened. What is so special about this year is that she loves Santa because he is magical. She doesn't realize that Santa brings gifts. To her, he is a sweet, happy man who loves Christmas. I am so pleased that we have another year without the full Christmas commercialism setting in. It isn't about what Santa is going to bring. It is about the fact that he is Santa. I am so excited about our new Christmas tree ornament. It is Santa Clause kneeling at the manger of baby Jesus. My grandmother has had a little statue of it for as long as I can remember and I feel it sends such a sacred message about the true meaning of Christmas. I have been searching online and in stores and could never find a version to my liking. Then Laura recommended I check a Catholic store. Bingo! The statue I want is fifty dollars so I will wait to get that in the future. But, they had a precious minature version for the Christmas tree that I purchased. I placed it on the tree without telling Hallie and waited to see her response. "Mommy, that is Santa Clause with the baby Jesus!" she exclaimed. We talked about how Santa loves baby Jesus and that we celebrate Christmas to remember the night that Jesus was born. I love these pictures of Hallie enjoying Santa.

for your baking pleasure

I'm going to let you in on a Christmas secret. For gifts for my grandmothers this year, I compiled a twenty-two page recipe book with pictures of favorite baking recipes. It is called "Hallie and Mommy's Adventures in Baking" because all featured recipes are ones made by Hallie and I together. Here is another Christmas secret-- I haven't even mailed it to them yet! This will be a New Year's surprise for them. The lines won't be so long at the post office by then. So, dear grandmothers, if you see this post-- surprise! And for everyone else, please enjoy some of our favorites from the book. And please let me know if you use any of them. I would love to know what you think!

Almond Eggnog Pound Cake

6 tbsp. butter, divided
2/3 cup sliced almonds
1 package yellow cake mix
1 ½ cups eggnog
2 eggs
1 tsp. almond extract
1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg

Grease a bundt pan with 2 tbsp. butter. Press almonds onto bottom and sides or pan; set aside.
Melt remaining butter. In a large mixing bowl, beat the cake mix, eggnog, eggs, almond extract,
nutmeg and melted butter on low speed for 30 seconds or just until moistened. Beat on medium
for 2 minutes or until smooth. Pout into prepared pan. Bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes or until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Cool for 15 minutes before removing to a wire rack. Note: This is what I've made for Christmas Eve the last several years. It always looks so pretty and the mild eggnog flavor gives it a distintive Christmas taste.

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Karen’s Gingersnaps

4 cups flour
4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. ginger
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 ½ cups canola oil
2 cups sugar
½ cups molasses
2 eggs

Blend oil, sugar, eggs, and molasses. Mix dry ingredients and add to wet mixtures. Refrigerate one hour. Form into balls, Roll in sugar. Bake at 350 for 8 minutes. Note: This is my sister-in-law's famous gingersnap recipe. To get extra use out of the dough, I make other types of cookies. See below.

Gingerbread People

Freeze dough for one hour. Roll out dough. Cut shapes. Bake 8-10 minutes. Decorate like you are a jolly Christmas elf. Note: Also, consider using this dough to make my favorite Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Cookies in lieu of peanut butter dough (Hallie can't eat peanut butter so that's what I'll be doing this year).

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Sparkling Butter Toffee Cookies

1 cup sugar
¾ cup butter softened
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp. baking soda
½ cup English toffee
Extra sugar

Heat oven to 350°F. In large mixer bowl, combine sugar, butter, egg, and vanilla. Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until creamy (1 to 2 minutes). Add flour, baking powder, and baking soda; reduce speed to low. Beat until well mixed (1 to 2 minutes). Stir in toffee bits by hand. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll in sugar. Place 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten each with bottom of glass to 1 ½ inch circles. (If glass sticks, dip glass in sugar.)
Bake 9 to 11 minutes or until edges are just lightly browned. Sprinkle with sugar while warm. Cool completely. Note: I like to make these for New Year's Eve. There is something about the sparkly look that makes it feel appropriate for that night.

making mommy memories

I didn't realize when I purchased a hand print ornament kit at Hobby Lobby that I was buying myself an emotional roller coaster. It was just on my to-do list for several weeks until the day I decided to get crafty. I opened my kit and read the instructions and before I knew it I was crying. Just the thought of me pulling these ornaments out of a box twenty years in the future had me spilling with emotion. I imagined touching the tiny casts of my baby's little hand prints and laughing while weeping over how much they had grown. And, I didn't just want to remember their hand size. I wanted to remember exactly what they looked like that day so that I could have their precious faces frozen in time as well. So, as any overzealous, hormonal mother would do, I took pictures of the process.

Let the record state that Hallie was very calm, composed, and excited about the process. She relished holding her hand still for one minute straight because she saw the picture of what it would become. Claire, on the other hand, thought I was trying to cement her hand permanently. She naturally tried to clutch and claw her way out of the mold, all the while wailing while I held her hand in place. But, when I look at her little hand on the Christmas tree, it looks still and peaceful. And Claire forgot about the terrifying ordeal as soon as she got her little paws on my instruction page. It was all worth it. And I now know to pack up these ornaments with a mini-pack of Kleenex so I can be prepared for the fountain of tears I'll be shedding in the future.

December

December is flying by! We are loving it though. We've done a little baking and have listened to lots of Christmas music and watched Christmas movies. There are lots of Christmas traditions I want to do, but I try to pace myself and remind myself that they are still little. We can always start new traditions next year and the year after. For right now, the most important thing to me is hugs and kisses by Christmas lights with some festive music playing in the background. That sounds like a good and easy enough tradition for me.

You know you are a busy mom when you go twenty-four hours with one eyebrow plucked. Yep, yesterday morning I squeezed in some time to pluck my eyebrows. I had time to shape the right one and then my children needed me. Cut to one day later when I have one bushy eyebrow and one sleeker version.

happy

I know I blog about all the lovely things in my life. I do it because my life is lovely. Yes my three-year-old can be snotty sometimes, but she is mostly vibrant and happy. So, the baby screams and want to be held a lot. She is also chubby and warm and cuddly. Sometimes Chris and I misinterpret the other person's meaning and waste fifteen minutes being offended until we get over ourselves. But we tell each other "I love you" fifteen times a day and once an hour we ask our spouse if we can get them a glass of water. Fridges break down and take up all our savings. ER visits and root canals happen and sometimes I feel like a slave to medical bills. I work twenty eight hour weeks while I still tend to babies and cooking and cleaning. But all these things are just brief snippets and moments in my life. And the rest of it is just happy and blissful and perfect to me. I don't let little moments get me down. In fact, I forget about them really quickly. The super-positive gene is embedded in my DNA. So, while I blog about everything always being so "lovely" and "wonderful." I really mean it.

Christmas Time is Here!

Christmas time is officially here and we are sooo excited. Chris used money from his recent birthday to buy a new sound system for our home. We have been loving listening to Christmas music daily. Hallie and I made about 50 cinnamon rolls the other day to get our baking started. We have our inside decorations up and will do our outside decorations this Saturday. Since our shopping is entirely complete, I just need to focus on Christmas cards. We have great pictures of the girls but I would love to have one taken of the four of us. Perhaps I can put that on the to-do list for Saturday as well!

Snippets of Vacation

So, before the trauma of my emergency room vacation, we were able to get in snippets of a real vacation. We visited with both the Skaggs and Hinkson sides of the family on Saturday. On Sunday, we were able to visit briefly with friends from the Garden Grove Seventh Ward at church. On Monday we had an In 'n Out lunch, a mall visit, and topped it off with Girl's Night Out. For our "Girl's Night," Mom, Karen, Kaylene and I went to Bella Terra to watch New Moon together. We met up with Kaylene's mom, grandma, and sister. We LOVED the movie (such a great diversion for busy moms and working ladies). After the movie, we indulged at the Cheesecake Factory. It was a wonderful night. And it happened to be my last hours before the pain and drama started. I am happy I spent it doing something I enjoyed so much!