Our family also took an evening to fulfill our annual tradition of watching It's a Wonderful Life together, complete with a snacky dinner in front of the t.v. Much to the delight of the kids, I bought individual bottles of sparkling cider to go with our snacks this year. I couldn't believe how long Jude's attention was held by the movie. He entertained himself (and us) by dancing the Charleston and repeatedly yelling "Hee Haw!" throughout the show.
We got to spend a lovely evening the weekend before last with our family worship group. We sang Christmas carols, nibbled Christmas cookies and chatted with new and old friends. We've also been blessed to enjoy a couple of nice dinners with old friends here at our house.Lydia spent an afternoon with Grandma Dianne, cousin Mackenzie and Aunt Lori watching a performance of The Nutcracker ballet. A good friend of mine found out that Lydia would be attending the ballet a few days prior to the event and gave Lydia a brown taffeta dress to wear that her own daughter had outgrown. The dress was sleeveless, so I went to Goodwill and found a little shrug to go with it. Lydia really got the princess treatment when Grace styled her a hair especially for the outing. Of course, Lydia loved every minute of the special afternoon.
As I've poked around the internet lately, I've been intrigued with the idea of holiday flavored homemade play dough. Grace and I tweaked our family play dough recipe to make a batch of peppermint play dough and a batch of gingerbread play dough. Hands down, this was the smartest move we made this year. The littles have been having a grand time "baking" their own play dough creations at the kitchen table nearly every day. This allows the rest of us to get some uninterrupted work time, so everybody ends up happy.
The three oldest kids participated in a recital this past Saturday. It was a major stress fest preparing for the event. Even Paul practiced and practiced and practice some more. It turned out that only two other moms and their daughters showed up for the recital. Better to be over, rather under prepared, I guess. Grace has been practicing her Mozart piece since September. Here's a snippet:Grace and I have been baking, baking, baking. Grace found a recipe for Danish Kringle, which she mastered pretty handily. It made us all swoon when we tasted it. She also made a couple of kringles for gifts.
I made two batches of pfeffernusse. Matt is not a fan of pfeffernusse, so I wasn't sure how the kids would react when they tried the anise flavored German cookies. I was delighted when they all gave the "pepper nuts" a huge thumbs up. Jude kept saying, "More lil' cookies, more lil' cookies, pwease!" I told all the kids that they were my good little krauts. Even my newest nephew from China liked the pfeffernusse. He's my good little Chinese kraut.
Grace and a family friend went out to run some Christmas errands yesterday. It gave Grace a chance to get a couple of more driving hours under her belt. Elizabeth and I got some time together in the kitchen while Grace was gone. We pumped out a bunch of Gooey Toffee Butter Cakes for our neighbors and Matt's coworkers. I've made these the last couple of years at Christmas time, so I've gotten a system down. With two ovens going, we can get these finished in less than two hours.
I buy little "to go" type containers at the dollar store (they come three to a package) in which to bake the cakes. Each recipe can be divided to make three cakes. After the cakes are cool, I put on the lids, affix a label (these were a gift from a friend) and stash them in the fridge until it's time to deliver them. When I finished baking the cakes last night, the kids asked, "Aren't you going to make one for us?" Providentially, I had enough ingredients for one more cake, so I went ahead and made it. These cakes don't look very pretty, but trust me, they're unbelievably delicious.
Elizabeth has been the official present wrapper this year. The only gifts I'll have to wrap will be hers. Perfect. It's so nice to have big girls. For all you moms out there with only littles, it will some day be that you have bigs. And the "Hallelujah Chorus" will ring in your ears. Rest assured, it will happen.Yesterday I went to Albertsons to do a little coupon shopping. I was feeling a little sorry for myself because I had fewer doubler coupons than I normally do and I knew that there would be a lot of deals I would have to forgo (yes, it's an emotion common to couponers). Anyway, I should have been a bit more mature about the whole thing, but I wasn't. However, I happened upon a happy sight when I spotted a cart full of candied fruits marked down to 50 cents each. Oh joy! I have used up nearly all the fruit that I had stashed in the freezer to make this year's Thanksgiving Bread and fruit cake. I filled my cart full and was delighted when my receipt showed an $80 savings. Woo hoo!
In the next few days, we'll bake up some eggnog bread and cranberry coffee cake for our Christmas breakfast. I'd also like to bake and frost some sugar cookies with the kids. We'll continue to read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever and ready the house for the family and friends we'll have coming later this week. We are so blessed--very rich indeed.
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