Merry Christmas!

Some highlights from our Christmas celebration. At exactly 7:00 am, the children were up. Actually they were out of the room at 7 am. They had been up before that, revving up for the morning but they weren't allowed out of the room until 7 am.

Deborah received Kirsten and she was thrilled. She says that Kirsten is her daughter and has slept with her since Christmas.

Aaron received his first pocketknife this Christmas.

We had a church family over for dinner. It was quite a dinner and we barely had room for all the food on the table!

They brought crackers to snap open just before dessert. The children really enjoyed that.

Of Food and Snow

Now that Christmas is over, I can catch up on the blog. We had a great Christmas - more on that later. For now, let's look at some food. I made this crockpot stew before Christmas. I added just a little tomato paste to the liquid and it not only made the stew taste better but it gave it a beautiful sheen.

I also make spaghetti sauce using only our yellow tomatoes. We had one heirloom tomato plant that make lovely small yellow tomatoes. For color, my dh suggested that I put peas and pancetta into the sauce. The sauce had a wonderful tartness to it.

On one occasion of getting 8 inches of snow, we made snow ice cream.

As some of you know, we've gotten a lot of snow up here. The children have a canyon of snow along our front sidewalk.

The snow drifted down to the egress windows in the basement as well.

We also had gym class where the boys loved climbing on the huge mounds of snow around the parking lot.

And now for some art-y snow pictures.

A Busy Visit with Grandma and Grandpa

My parents came for a week's visit after Thanksgiving. We packed a bunch of stuff into their week. Nathan and Grandpa got the model train running.

Besides the gingerbread house/camp site, we also put up the inside Christmas decorations. Something new this year - fancy balls hanging down from the lights.

The mantle with new lights.

We had a lot of painting time.



Nathan also made some "icicles" for our shelf downstairs.

Reading with Grandpa.

My dh and I also had a wine and cheese tasting time with my parents after the children were in bed.

Saturday night we had the double whammy of a piano recital and the Handel's Messiah at the Symphony. Everyone did very well at the recital - even me!

We were also able to go catch Bolt at the theater and rent Prince Caspian. I told you it was a busy time!

Gingerbread Camp

The boys and I entered a Gingerbread house contest last week. Nathan and I did most of the work. We made the gingerbread and then I made the lovely Royal Frosting that hardens into a rock. We also got our first experience working with fondant. That was sticky. I had to keep putting it back in the fridge to cool it down.

First the details. Here is Santa peeking out from behind a tree. And yes, I know that the trees, people, and tents are out of proportion. But I wasn't about to start over at this point!

Our lovely girl?boy? roasting a marshmellow. Deborah told me that no one would roast a marshmellow IN the fire but that was the only way to hold up the "flames" so that they looked right.

And now the final product! Ta Da! We got a second place ribbon in our category.