New Year's Eve

We celebrated the last day of 2009 by having a fondue dinner. Grace didn't care for the beef tenderloin, chicken breast, scallops or the handmade sauces but when it came to dessert she couldn't get enough of the angel food cake dipped in chocolate!


Have a wonderful evening - see you in 2010!

Christmas Eve

Our little family is ready to let the magic begin....

We wish you a Christmas filled with joy!

Visit With Santa

Grace finally had the opportunity to visit with Santa Claus. When speaking with him she requested four items - a flashlight, pair of earmuffs, a fan that folds and a dinosaur egg. Everyone seems to get a chuckle out of her wish list, Santa included!

Saturday's Holiday Happenings

Our day was filled to the brim with holiday fun:


We started our holiday baking by making brownie bites - Dean and Grace were the official Hershey Kiss unwrappers.


Crafts were made (along with treats for our backyard friends) at the library.


Lastly, after dinner we headed to St. Armand's Circle to see the holiday lights.

Grace didn't get a chance to Santa, one of the things we hoped to accomplish, so that's first on the list for Monday.

Enjoy the remainder of your weekend!

Sugar Plum Pudding....Our Way

Grace had been rather insistent on making sugar plum pudding this holiday season. I'm not quite sure where she got the idea but after reading through numerous recipes I knew none of us would eat it. So.... I came up with another idea. I found a recipe for brown sugar pudding (here) - it contained the words sugar and pudding so that counted right?

After a bit of persuading Grace became content with idea of making a pudding sans plums (she dislikes them anyway). We made it today - what a delicious evening treat it was!

Holiday Crafting

Grace and I have been crafting like crazy for the holidays. Here's a couple of the projects we finished last week...


We made place mats and napkins using the technique (here). This was a project that Grace started with Brandon at the cookie bake, then we finished them at home.


Then we made little ovens for the Crafty Crow ornament exchange. The ornaments were inspired by the book, "Gingerbread Baby" by Jan Brett. Grace came up with the idea on her own - she sketched an oven (this was my "pattern") and found a recipe for cinnamon "cookies" in an issue of "High Five" magazine. As you can see from the photo, the gingerbread baby is tucked behind the oven door. If you open the door too soon... he'll escape and run away as fast as he can.

Now Grace is making frequent trips to the mailbox to see if she's received any ornaments from her exchange partners. Oh how she loves to receive mail!

The Sweet House

I remember being in awe every year as I would thumb through my mom's December issue of "Good Housekeeping" magazine - it always contained the gingerbread house contest winners. A couple of years back I started a tradition with Grace of making our own gingerbread creation at the holidays. Our houses are nothing like the amazing ones highlighted in the magazine, but they're special to us just the same.


We always use the cast iron mold in the photo above, which I received as a gift from my parents, to create the pieces for the house. After baking, we leave the pieces on the counter for a couple of days to get crisp.


Then it's time for the assembly. After much effort to get the house to stand, Grace got busy decorating. She used a variety of candies that she'd selected from the bulk candy bins at Super Target. Of course while decorating she needed to "have a little sample" of each kind of candy.... covered in frosting.


Here's the finished product. The sweet house is now adorning our mantle - I just hope we're not singing "the ants come marching two by two, hurrah, hurrah" come morning!