Very Busy

We lost power on Sunday, and now our (finished) basement is wet, wet, wet. Patrick is busy trying to get it all dried out before he has to return to work. So far the fans and space heater seem to be getting the job done, though slowly. I haven't been downstairs yet...I haven't mustered the courage yet.

Meanwhile Liam busies himself with his new nesting barrels. He spent a long time moving cheerios from one container to the next and back again. When he notices an audience, he'll say "Ta DAAA" and start the applause himself.

New Word

"Coo-KEEEEEEEEEE"




Eight tiny reindeer.

Elves at Work

I had lots of help with this year's Christmas cards (thank you, loving helpers!!!). Here they are, busily cutting and gluing pieces together. Somehow, we always end up working on cards up to the very last moment. Believe it or not, these cards were begun in January, yet here we were mere days away from the last mailing opportunity, assembling like mad-people.

We made "many".

Here's a closeup. The cookie stamps are from Too Much Fun except the snowmen, which were created from photos of actual cookies. The pop-out snowman was colored with PrismaColors, and the rest were done via PhotoShop. Pistachio cardstock came from The Paper Cut.

M E R R Y C H R I S T M A S!!!

Snow Day

We had a snow day on Friday. Here's what some of us did that day:





Others of us didn't enjoy the snow quite as much.

Baking Notes

We make dozens and dozens of cookies each year. It's one of my favorite parts of getting ready for Christmas. This year I had lots of help from Patrick and the kids.

These are some reflections about things I learned this year. I always learn something, even if I am making the same varieties year after year.

These thumbprints, for instance, could be spaced much closer together than the recipe states. Two inches apart...what were they thinking? They don't expand that much.

Also, filling these babies using a squeeze bottle for the jelly worked like a dream.


Next, Mexican Wedding Cakes. I may never make these again. What a mess! Some of them crumbled during the coating process, breaking into a million pieces and causing me to make unkind remarks about their brittleness. The recipe called for baking at 300F for 40 minutes. Forty minutes? Who has that kind of time. I baked them at 350 for 12. Maybe that was the problem. Still. These things are sticky after the first coat of powdered sugar, and fragile. I decided to put them in mini-parchment cups to control the mess. The second coating came via a sugar-shaker.



Next up, the family favorite: Carolers. These are a not-sweet cutout-cookie, meant to frost and decorate. I watched an episode of Martha recently where she touted the ease of rolling out any variety of cutout-cookie dough onto a silpat, then placing that onto a baking sheet, cutting out the shapes directly and whisking the whole shebang into the freezer for a couple of minutes. She then removed the "negative" pieces of dough and baked the cookies as usual. Oh, this sounded like a real time-saver.

Ha! and Double Ha! What it was, was a mess. I ended up using my offset spatula to clear the baking sheet of all dough and starting over with my own (tried and true) method. Witness the simplicity. Even a child can do it.

First, place a piece of plastic wrap on your work surface. Scoop out a heaping tablespoon of chilled cookie dough onto the wrap. Place another piece of wrap on top.

Use your super-wham-o-dyne pastry sticks (not sure what these are called, but you can use square moulding too, which is commonly available at hardware stores) to guide your rolling pin and achieve a uniform thickness of dough. Note that with this method, you only roll out enough dough to cut one cookie.


Remove the top layer of plastic, cut out your cookie, then use the bottom layer of wrap to lift the cut-out from the workspace and in one fell swoop you are able to remove the "negative" dough, and deposit the "positive" dough onto your prepared baking sheet. Viola! A perfect cut-out.

Though it may not seem that way from the written description, I think that this method is faster than the traditional method, and certainly more successful (for me anyway) than Martha's method. Once you get a rhythym going, you'll be filling baking sheets in no time flat.

Incidentally, the way I like to decorate these types of cookies is to frost with white, then decorate with sprinkles, m&m baking bits, nuts, nonpareils, etc. The kids get very creative. Can you make out the word "peace" spelled out on the girl's dress below? The bonus for me is that it doesn't require the mixing of twenty-seven different colors of frosting.


When all was baked and decorated, we wound up with eight varieties of cookies, plus many dozens of turtles to build our cookie plates.

Liam got exhausted watching all the action.


His favorite are the date-nut pinwheels.

The Portrait You Won't Be Getting

It went downhill from here very fast.

The Carnage was Frightful

Today is not starting out well. Yesterday the girls and I laid the foundation for 300+ turtles. This morning 2/3 of them wound up on the floor. Stinking gravity! The sound of the baking sheets crashing to the floor woke everyone up--fabulous. Below is a portion of the dead turtles. Aren't they sad?

My camera refused to give up its photos this morning. Switching to a different computer worked eventually, but what should have been a 2-minute process took about 30. I don't have 30 minutes to spare until Christmas! ack!!!

Shopping isn't done.

Baking isn't done.

Card-making isn't done.

It's going to be a very, very busy day. I hope the kids decide to cooperate. If they don't, they're all getting tossed into the nearest snowbank.

Thanksgiving Memories

We hosted the Big Feast this year. Everything turned out great, despite the fact that the jumbo marshmallows I had planned to use for the sweet potatoes had been commandeered for engineering purposes several weeks prior. No matter!

We even had an unexpected guest, which was a happy surprise.

This is how Liam spent much of his time while I was busy in the kitchen.


Dinner rolls, how I love you. I must make more! These are the cheater ones that you can find in the frozen food section. Not as good as Mom used to make, but way more convenient.


















Food coma.

Advent Calendar

Here's a neat idea for a do-it-yourself Advent calendar. One of these years I'm going to do this.

Not this year, I fear.

Forget Harry Potter

Trek fans, look what's coming!



Hurry up, May 2009!

Counting Down

It's snowing outside--giant, fluffy flakes. It's starting to feel like Christmas! We have a bit of a dilemma this year, about where to put the tree. We're thinking of getting an itty bitty potted tree, in which case the ornaments above will remain in storage.

The family room got smaller, you see. In January we added a treadmill because there was no other space to place it.

Somehow I can't envision a full-sized, bedecked Christmas tree surviving in the same room with a treadmill that gets pounded on multiple times per week.

What to do...

Like Father, Like Son

Last Chance

...to play in the leaves this season.
They did eventually get around to removing the leaves.

Thirteen Is

Sweet
Thoughtful
Hopeful
and Fun!

You are the busiest thirteen-year-old I know. This year you are taking dance, voice, and drama. You are involved in FIRST Lego League, flag football, confirmation classes, youth group, and piano. You're best subjects are...all of them. You want to be an author when you grow up, and to be a mom. You love babies and wish that I would have more of them (!).

You write, knit, draw, sculp, stamp, and bead.

You are a sincere and loyal friend, and you have a big heart.
Your birth changed our lives forever, and for that we Thank God every day. I can't wait to see what the next thirteen years bring you.

Happy Birthday, Sweetheart!

Happy Halloween

Sean's, Holly's, Laurel's, and Liam's
Thanks for the pumpkins, Aunt Nancy!!!

Christmas Turtles

I've been making these edible little cuties for Christmas since my first Christmas as a Navy Wife. They are always a hit, and I've found that making these with children is even more fun!

First, it helps to have a caramel-unwrapper at your disposal. Most 5 year-olds are up to the task. Just be sure to lecture them on the importance of keeping their hands away from mouths, noses, the family pet, etc. while they're doing their important work. ...and it is important work. If the five-year-old won't do it, you may be left to do it yourself and well...it can be a daunting task for just one.  I recommend you start with one bag of caramels.  Choose a brand of caramels that you think is yummy.  I use Kraft brand.


After they've all been unwrapped, cut each one in half. I used to use a whole caramel for these, but by using only half the caramel, it ups the chocolate-to-caramel ratio of the final product. I like that. Feel free to experiment.

If you'd like to keep your children busy for a long time, have them knock the sharp edges off of the caramels by picking each one up individually and banging it on the table, rotating, and banging some more.  If you're in more of a rush, try placing the caramels on a parchment-lined baking sheet (after cutting them in half) and heating them in a 350 degree oven for just a couple of minutes before shaping them. The heat will make the caramels much more pliable.   Place the shaped-caramels on wax paper until they're needed.

Next step: Turtle Base (feet and head)

Prepare a few (depending on how many caramels you've got ready) cutting boards or baking sheets by lining them with waxed paper.  Do not skip this step!

Melt some chocolate over a double-boiler. Use an amount appropriate to the size of your double-boiler--you can always add more later.  You'll need enough so that the melted chocolate is about an inch deep (or more) in the pan.  I use the old standby, Nestle's Semi-sweet Chocolate Morsels, but any chocolate will do. When it's melted, transfer some of it to a disposable piping bag. If you don't own any disposable piping bags, you could just use a spoon to drop a glob of chocolate onto the waxed paper. I did it this way for about sixteen years before discovering the magic that is the disposable piping bag.

Caution:  melted chocolate is hot.  You probably can't tell from the photo, but I am grimacing because my hands are being burned by the chocolate.  If I were really smart (and I did do this, eventually) I would've donned some gloves before picking up that piping bag.  Learn from me!  Grab some of those cheapy stretch gloves and save your skin.

Create rows and columns of chocolate globs. You'll be pressing five peanut halves into each glob, so leave enough space between each chocolate glob to accommodate those.

This is another step where having cheerful, willing helpers is a great boon. Not only do the peanuts (I use dry roasted peanuts, the lightly salted variety) have to be separated into halves, but they have to be arranged in a star-shape. It's labor-intensive! Gather as many helpers as you can.  Make them tie up their hair, if necessary.

After all the little turtle bases have been assembled, let the chocolate harden for several hours before moving to the next step.  Find the coolest spot in the house, and set them there.

Step Next: Enrobing

My best advice for this step is to not let the chocolate get too hot. Cycle the burner on and off throughout the process. Stir the chocolate often. If you know how to temper chocolate, do it. I have made many attempts at tempering, and have had varying levels of success. Your turtles may show some bloom (white spots on the chocolate) after a few days, and that is a sign that the chocolate wasn't properly tempered. Blooming does not affect the taste or texture of the chocolate in any way. If you eat them within the first couple of days, bloom will never reach your turtles.  I've found that covering the trays of turtles helps to reduce blooming.

To do the enrobing, drop one caramel into the chocolate, scoop it up with a long-handled teaspoon then use a chopstick (or whatever you find handy) to turn the caramel over in the bowl of the spoon.  Coat it completely in the chocolate, then transfer the enrobed caramel to the waiting tray of turtle bases, and ever-so-carefully use the chopstick to slide it off of the spoon and onto the center of one of the turtle bases.  Splendid!

When the enrobing is finished, all that's left to do is add eyes.  Dip a skewer or toothpick into melted chocolate and add two little dots of chocolate for the eyes. This is where having them lined up in rows and columns comes in handy.  If the turtle bases were created in a random pattern initially, it would be more difficult to place the eyes--you could very well end up with blind turtles, or turtles with two heads.  (Note that the deliciousness would not be affected in any way, were this to happen.)

After a couple of hours, depending on the ambient temperature, the chocolate will harden and you will be able to easily peel each turtle away from its waxed paper mooring. I recommend keeping these in a cool area of the house until you're ready to plate them.  These little guys are remarkably sturdy and look great marching across a platter of cookies.

Enjoy!

More Distractions

Who dreams up these things? I like these kinds of thinking games. I can't wait to see what the kids do with it.

The layout of the course changes after each successful mission. Your challenge is always to build a contraption that moves the small pink shape until it is entirely inside the "goal" (the large pink square). You have a limited number of tools with which to work, but there are seemingly infinite ways to arrange them. Some will achieve the desired result; some will not!

The design shown here doesn't quite work. Yet. It's fun to see what unexpected things happen when you click the "start" button.

Update: Here it is in action. Working! I didn't say it was elegant... ;)

This Explains a Lot

Thanks to Laurel's passion for photography, I now know why my basement walls are grimy from floor to ceiling.

Somehow I am not comforted by this knowledge.

The boy has been counseled. I may involve him in the clean up process as well...

Can you say "elbow grease"?

Autumn

Fall has arrived.

The pumpkin fairy dropped these off yesterday (thank you, Aunt Nancy!).

Addicted

If you're into word games or geography games, check out facebook's online games.
Warning: they can be addictive!

Excuse me now, while I go try to prove that I have a bigger brain than my sister.

Aesop Retold

One of the skills my first-grader is working on this year is the ability to re-tell a story. We're beginning with Aesop's fables.

Last week he heard the fable of the Fox and the Crow. This morning he dictated the following:
(I so love his "moral" at the end.)

A crow finds some cheese and wants to feed it to her babies and a fox walks by and thinks, “I want that cheese.” The fox tries to make the crow drop the cheese. He says, “My you look very beautiful today.” The crow did not reply. The fox tried again. He said, “The rabbits say you have a lovely voice, but I’m not sure that that is true. I can’t be sure until I hear you sing a little song.”

The crow did not sing. The fox said, “Please? Just one teeny, tiny little song?” The crow decided to sing a little song. As she sang, the cheese went “Plop!” out of her mouth and onto the ground. The fox ran to the cheese and gobbled it all up.

Moral of the story: Keep your mouth shut.

Back at it Again

School, that is. Here are my dauntless scholars in our freshly scrubbed classroom.

This year Holly will be in eighth grade, Laurel in fifth and Sean in first. Liam is too little to care; he just wants someone to give him a writing implement.

Don't they look happy to be back in their classroom? I think they were happier than I was. I had possibly been enjoying a bit too much the whole do-what-you-want-when-you-want lifestyle that comes along with summer.

Not only are we back to school, but back to Everything Else too. It's a lot.

I find that a well-written Lesson Plan for the week makes everyone's day better. Finding the perfect notebook to contain said Lesson Plan has proven a bit of a challenge this year. More on that later.

Recycling Gone Too Far

Tonight at dinner, Sean (6) was eating a fudge bar. He got down to the stick and commented on how he could recycle it. "It would make a great tongue dispenser".

I can only imagine a bubblegum-like machine full of tongues. Laurel refused to draw a sketch of it for the blog. "Too disgusting," she said. Humph.

Travel Log Some More

We'd never been to Islands of Adventure before, but what a great surprise this place was. It's like six theme parks rolled into one. Most of my photos are from Seuss Landing, but the most fun I had was in Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park has a particular ride that made me think I might just get eaten by a real-live dinosaur. eeek! It also has some wicked water cannons that my children (my children!) had to tear me away from. Too much fun! I could barely stand it.


Liam and Patrick on the "Carou-Seussal". For what it's worth--this has got to be the shortest carousel ride in the world. Fun though.


Sean and Laurel had an all-out water war. All in good fun. Note to self--put bathing suits on the kids before bringing them to "If I Ran the Zoo".


Thankfully, we at least had a swim diaper for the little boy. He sat down in this shallow stream and splashed away. Rides? What rides?


In the "Toon Lagoon" our favorite ride was the "Rip-Saw Falls" water coaster. Holly was hesitant to try it at first because of its "big dip", but after trying it once she was hooked. This ride features our hero, Dudley Do-Right of the Royal Canadian Mounties. We're all fans of the Rocky and Bullwinkle DVDs, and this ride brought us right into one of the stories. Fun!

It was at Islands of Adventure too, that Sean got to meet and speak to the Spider Man. He didn't want to do it; said he wasn't going to do it, and then started walking the other way. I said, "OK well, Liam is going to meet him. Just wait for us." Suddenly, he found his courage. Spider Man talked to him about being a good big brother and about the importance of eating his vegetables. What mom could ask for anything more?

I know next-to-nothing about Spider Man, but whoever this guy is, he's OK by me.

We visited "Shrek 4D". Sean was quite afraid of this ride too, until he discovered that it was the same story as our "bonus DVD" from our purchase of "Shrek 2". The pre-show was as good or better than the show itself.

When we got out of the theater, photo opportunities abounded. An animated Donkey was waiting to have his picture taken with us. This guy caught Liam's attention right away. Donkey was talking mainly to Laurel, asking her who everybody was, complimenting her on her hair, etc. Then Donkey turned toward the baby and said, "Liam, how's it going man?" Liam's eyes got wide and he did a baby-double-take and tried to claw his way through me to get away. He was not expecting that thing to say his name. He didn't cry, but he was obviously startled. Poor baby!

Patrick and I rode a couple of great coasters--Hulk, and Dueling Dragons. One attraction we wish we had skipped was Neptune's Fury. This one had no pre-show, so it left us waiting for 40 minutes in a dark, cramped cavern with nothing but blank walls and strangers to look at. The show itself lasted 20 minutes, and aside from an impressive swirling water tunnel there is nothing remarkable to comment about.

Universal Studios was our next stop. This park had little to offer people of Sean's age. Holly and Laurel both enjoyed "Disaster" a lot. This attraction turns audience members into cast members who star in a mini-movie that is displayed for the ride-goers as they experience the ride. Laurel and Holly each got roles (during separate visits to the ride) and thoroughly enjoyed their time in front of the cameras.

By far though, the best ride in the park is The Simpsons Ride. If you're a fan of the Simpons, especially, you will love this ride. If you've ever ridden the Back to the Future ride, you'll recognize the building and the motion-simulators, which have been repurposed. Holly and Laurel rode this one four times! Even the wait in line isn't so bad because they have TV monitors up all over the place broadcasting hilarious bits from The Simpsons.

Enjoying theme parks all day led to many a good night's sleep. He looks so tiny in this gigantic bed.

Good-bye, Florida. We'll miss you.