Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Our Christmas Joy!

Christmas was full of lots of laughter and cheer in our house!  We enjoy it every year!



It only took us 15 minutes to get this cute photo done!



And the kids look so sweet in this one...



The kids are dressed and ready for Santa to come!




And Santa came...







































Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year! 

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Could It Be? Look At What Came Around the Bend...


Joseph recently latched onto the fun tradition of building gingerbread houses and then slowly taking them apart and nibbling on them over the holiday season.  He then had the awesome idea for us all to make a gingerbread train together.  I cook, but I don't often bake, so I shortened the gingerbread construction process and used graham crackers instead of actual gingerbread.  This hastened us on to what I think the best part of gingerbread is - the decorating part!

The night before, we made the royal icing…



Put the trains together…




And the kids helped me clean up…




The next day, Joseph was so excited to decorate the train (especially the engine), he got up a little after 5am! Finally, after hours of breakfast and getting dressed and preparations, we were ready to go!


Joseph worked hard on his engine…




Esther helped out with the caboose work…


And then Glen made the nicest engine tender...


Here is our completed project!  What fun!


Now...it's time to eat!  We hope that you are enjoying your Christmas seasons!



Sunday, December 13, 2009

Easy Rocky Road Fudge

I have been a treat-making machine this week and bought LOTS of baking goodies at the store on Friday in order to fulfill my Christmas treat cravings. I had an idea to make plain fudge and ended up whipping up a version of my own rocky road fudge. We have enjoyed it, as you can see and rocky road fudge is something that is especially fun for kids to eat, because of the marshmallows. This will only take about 10 minutes to make and about a few hours to harden, so plan ahead…


Ingredients:

14.5 oz can of sweetened condensed milk

2 cups (12 oz bag) of semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 oz unsweetened baking chocolate or 3 TBS cocoa powder + 1 TBS butter

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup marshmallows

½ cup chopped walnuts

Butter a 8X8 baking dish. Pour the contents of a 14.5 oz can of sweetened-condensed milk into a medium-sized saucepan. With burner turned on low heat, pour in chocolate chips, unsweetened cocoa, and vanilla. Stir until smooth. Add marshmallows and walnuts, stir and put mixture quickly into the dish. Leave dish in the fridge for a few hours to harden and enjoy! We did…


Sorry there aren't more pieces of fudge in the picture!  We couldn't resist.