Photo 365 #122

December 7, 2014December 8, 20142 Comments

I’m continuing the Christmas theme today with pictures from the annual Kauffman Christmas. Seymour’s family gets together every year to celebrate with all the aunts, uncles, and cousins, and it’s always a lot of fun. There’s enough food to feed a small army, great conversations on every topic under the sun, and even a visit from Santa Claus. It’s one of the highlights of the year for me because there’s nothing better than spending the holidays with the ones you love. 🙂

“Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus, right down Santa Claus Lane…”

Cricket talked Santa’s ear off.

Thumper was much more excited about seeing Santa today than he was three weeks ago.

Baby Frank spent the afternoon snuggled up in his stocking.

How does your family do Christmas?

Photo Friday: The Twelve Pains of Christmas

December 5, 2014Leave a comment

We’ve been decorating at work today. Each year, we put up two Christmas trees – one in our lobby and one in our entryway. As we were trying to string the lights on the trees this morning, Bob Rivers’ Christmas classic kept running through my head.

Go home, Christmas tree, you’re drunk.

So pretty! 🙂

Luckily, we managed to untangle all the lights, and it was totally worth all the hassle. I mean, even the drunken Christmas tree looks a lot better now than it did this morning. 🙂

Photo 365 #120

December 5, 20144 Comments

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Inside, anyway. Outside, most of the snow has melted and the temperature is hovering just north of freezing.

poinsettia

But inside, we’ve been decorating. And it looks purty.

Do you like to decorate for Christmas?

Photo 365 #118

December 3, 20146 Comments

So how did my meringue cookies turn out? Well…

…om nom nom!

I hopped out of bed bright and early this morning to retrieve them from the oven before Thumper had a chance to go exploring. They looked good, they had a bit of crispness to them as I scraped them from the cookie sheet, and they tasted great. But…

I remember my aunt’s cookies being crispy all the way through. Mine are a little crispy on the outside, and soft on the inside. They taste like marshmallows.

This is not a bad thing, mind you – I adore marshmallows, and have been known to eat them straight out of the bag. But I wanted crispy, meringuey deliciousness, not marshmallows.

*sigh*

I guess that means I need to take another crack at those ice cream cookies next week for the 4-H cookie walk so that I can justify making more meringue cookies with the leftover egg whites. 🙂

Do you do Christmas cookies each year? What are some of your favorite recipes?

Photo 365 #117

December 2, 2014December 3, 2014Leave a comment

Who doesn’t love Christmas cookies? Well, me. At least at the beginning of December, anyway.

My church and my kids’ 4-H club like scheduling their Christmas cookie walks right next to each other. I think last year, they might have been the same weekend, but this year, they’re separated by a week. I’m sure this is completely unintentional, but it makes for a very long day of baking. After all, 27 dozen is a heck of a lot of cookies.

Anyway.

I kind of forgot about the church cookie walk this year, so by the time I found the letter about it, it was too late to just give money and let someone else do the baking. The cookie walk is this Saturday and, since today is the only free day I have between now and then, I decided to get those cookies knocked out bright and early.

Cookie fail.

Mmm, meringue…

Cricket decided he wanted to help…

Photo 365 #100

November 15, 2014November 17, 20142 Comments

Last night was Miracle on Main, my hometown’s annual Christmas kickoff. Among other activities, they had a whole room set aside for Santa to see visitors:

santa

Thumper didn’t say a whole lot, but that was okay, because Cricket did all the talking for him. 🙂 It was quite possibly the most adorable Santa encounter I’ve ever witnessed (at least with my kids).

Do your kids like going to see Santa? Or do they scream in terror at the sight of him?

Photo 365 #2

August 9, 201426 Comments

I’m so creative with my post title today, aren’t I?

Anyway, I decided last weekend when I found one of my mom’s old embroidery hoops that I should take up embroidery again. My grandma gave me an embroidery kit once for Christmas when I was a kid and, though I started one of the samplers, I never finished.

No, I didn’t do this, but maybe someday…

I bought some embroidery floss and a fat square the other day when Miss Tadpole and I went to pick out the fabric for her home ec. project. I don’t have a pattern yet, but I was thinking something in a fleur de lis would be pretty. Of course, since I bought green and red floss, maybe I should stick with a holly and berry theme? That would be pretty too.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Thirteen things

December 31, 2013January 1, 201416 Comments

IMG_20131229_185204 I got the idea for this post from my friend Sammy, and the idea is to list thirteen positive things and connected to me (at least, that’s what I gathered from her brief intro). This list is in no particular order, except for the order in which they occurred to me. So, without further ado, here are thirteen positive things from 2013:

My Christmas wish

December 25, 2013December 24, 2013Leave a comment

Here’s hoping everyone has a very merry Christmas! I’m looking forward to a day full of family and fun. From my family to yours, have a wonderful holiday!

And now, an ecard

December 18, 201316 Comments

awesome

I’ve been fighting a sinus infection, an ear infection, and recovering from back-to-back Christmas parties with a cookie walk thrown in for good measure. I baked 23 dozen Christmas cookies in a span of 24 hours. I hope to be back to my normal self (both blogging and otherwise) soon, thanks to massive antibiotics (seriously, the things are horse pills!) and a(nother) good night’s sleep. Until then, please to enjoy these delicious virtual cookies:

IMG_20131213_134619