25 Days of Christmas

I love Christmas.  And I love that my kids are getting old enough to enjoy it too.  It's more fun to put up the tree and decorate it, buy Christmas gifts and wrap them, and do Christmas-y activities when my girls are enjoying it too.  They are getting more and more excited every day. 

This year, I don't want to get to the end of the season and wish I had done more with them to build up the magic.  But I'm finding I am running short on ideas.  I want to do something special every day from now until Christmas day.  That means I need 25 ideas.  Here's what I have so far.  What other ideas do you have?

1. Gingerbread houses
2. Candy trains
3. Cookie Swap/Play group
4. Make a count down chain (I truly hate these, but at least it's something, right?)
5. Make paper snowflakes
6. Make cardboard stars and decorate with glitter to hang from ceiling
7. Go to see the creche exhibit
8. Drive around to see lights in the area

In addition to these, we will be celebrating Taryn's birthday at the children's museum and going to the Science museum in Chicago with grandma and grandpa.  So that means I have 9 days where at least SOME activity is going on.  I still need 16 more. 

What are some great, or fun, or memorable, or enjoyable activities, crafts, treats, or adventures that make this incredible season more magical and exciting for your kids?  I'd love your ideas!

Thanksgiving Weekend Specials!

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The Kitchen Sink Boutique

That Was Then, This is Now

I spoke too soon.  We're forcasted for SNOW tonight and tomorrow!!  We are SO excited!  Wahoo!

Talking 'Bout Weather

I know that everyone secretly (or not so secretly) hoped that when we got here and winter came, we'd admit that Arizona's weather was better and that we missed it.  People here keep asking us if we wish we were back in Arizona yet.  The answer?  No.

My goodness, I wish you could all experience the incredible weather we've had in the last 8 months.  I love having 4 seasons again.  I love having flowers bloom, leaves come back on trees, watching the canopy form, loving the lakes, watching the leaves change colors, seeing them fall, seeing the black silhouettes of trees that are bare, feeling the cold wind blow, snuggling under blankets at night, wanting hot chocolate, and anticipating snow.  I know there are two kinds of people in this world: those that prefer hot and those that prefer cold.  We prefer cold.  Hands down.  So everyone who prefers hot thinks we're crazy, while we are in heaven.

Right now, in Arizona, everyone is still in t-shirts, grateful that the 100 degree days are finally over for a few months.  Here, we're also in t-shirts, loving 50 degrees and soaking it in.  Perspective. 

I check the weather report every few days to see if snow is in the forecast, and its not yet, but we are SO excited for it to come! 

Taryn...Cracks Me Up Every Day

Taryn is going to be 3 in just 4 weeks.  I can't believe it.  She started into the terrible 2s when she was about 15 months old.  Well, actually, probably before that.  She was a really hard baby.  From about 6 months on, she was just crabby.  Then she became so strong-willed that we could hardly contain her.  As a 10 month old, she would make me cry because of how busy she was.  Then the screaming and stubbornness started.  And it seemed to only get worse.  A lot of our decisions were based around Taryn's behavior which made things hard.  We had a lot of discussions about learning to love her because it wasn't easy.  I hate to actually admit all of that, but I'm sure some of you out there can relate.  And can feel better knowing you're not alone.

Anyway, as Taryn has grown up over the last 3 years and as we have grown up with her, we have learned so many things about this child.  First, she isn't stubborn.  She's PASSIONATE.  I have never met someone as passionate as she is.  She feels everything in a big way.  Nothing is minor to this child.  And that means her joys and happinesses are bigger than I've ever seen.  Yes, it also means her frustrations and tantrums are equally big.  But I'd rather have all of her passion, including the anger, than not have it at all. 

Second, she makes everyone she meets happy.  She loves people and they love her.  She is open, honest, talkative, giving, loving, caring, gentle...the list could go on forever.  Her positive qualities are unbelievable.  She is patient with trials and difficulties.  She is dedicated and determined and doesn't give up easily.  She is brave and willing to try new things.  She loves to learn and loves to help.  She still loves to read.  She is nurturing and kind.  And she is the best friend anyone could ask for.  She is full of life, love and light and I can't believe I get her as my daughter.  I have never met someone quite like this kid.  She is amazing.

Anyway, now that she's almost three, I'm almost sad to see this difficult time nearing a possible close.  I know she will always be this passionate and I worry about the yelling she'll do as a teenager.  I don't know how to describe it. But I am a little sad that my terrible two (really, its terrific) is growing up. 

Taryn has an uncanny ability to get into trouble and get messy when you wouldn't think it possible.  She finds a way.  And she is incredibly clumsy.  She trips on her own two feet...probably because she's just so excited to get on doing whatever it is she's thinking about at the moment.

One day she got into the blue chalk.  Word to the wise, don't use blue chalk.  It doesn't come out in the laundry.  And it turns your child in to a smurf. 

A couple weeks ago, I ran upstairs during Taryn's nap to find her in this position:

Yes, she's in the floor vent.  I couldn't help but laugh.

I love this wonderful kid!  If you ever need a bit of life and light in your day, you can borrow this amazing child.  But make sure you bring her back.  I miss her after about 2 minutes of her being gone.

A Really Good Meatless Recipe--Pesto Lasagna Rolls

So, you all know how I've been trying to eat meat less?  It's been going okay.  But I found that I was paralyzed with not knowing what to make since I didn't have a ton of meatless recipes.  So instead of just figuring it out, I would do nothing.  After too many thrown together dinners at the last minute, Braden and I decided to try to cut back on meat both by having meatless meals but also having less-meat meals.  So where I would normally use 2 chicken breasts in a recipe, I'll use one.  Make sense?  That way, I could still make what we were having before, but with less meat.  That made things easier.  And we found we still had plenty to eat.

I'm still trying to come up with more meatless recipes, however, and loved putting this one together. I wanted to do three-cheese stuffed shells, but didn't have the shells. So instead, I cooked my lasagna noodles until al dente. I took cottage cheese and ran it thru my electric food chopper/grinder to make a faux-ricotta. Then I added 3 Tbs jarred pesto, 1/4 cup mozzarella cheese, 1 Tbs sour cream, and I think an egg. I stirred it all together then spread it in the center of the lasagna noodles leaving 1-1/2 inches on both ends. Finally, I rolled them up, layed them in a lightly greased pan, topped them with marinara sauce and mozzarella, and baked them for about 30 minutes. They were delicious!

Halloween Recap

I'm not a huge Halloween fan.  But I love it for my kids.  This year, Taryn wanted to be a wolf.  Not a princess?  Not a ghost?  Not a witch?  No, a wolf.  So we built a theme around it.  Keara was Little Red Riding Hood, Taryn was the wolf, I was the grandma because Avery wouldn't wear the wig, Braden was the woodsman, and Avery ended up being a blue fairy last minute.  I loved making their costumes this year and LOVED how they turned out.  Unfortunately, I didn't take many pictures. Shame on me.

On Thursday, we went to a grocery store's Boo Blast.  SO fun! They had stations all over the store giving out samples and treats. 

 That night, we carved our pumpkins.  I did one in honor of the girls.  Three sided too...

 Braden did his traditional Bears logo.  We love it!  It never gets old.

 Taryn didn't want to get her hand dirty and therefore didn't carve one.  But Keara quickly got into pulling out the guts and even said, "I want to put all that back into the pumpkin so I can take it out again!"  You go girl.

 She loved being able to cut it herself, though getting the knife in and out of the pumpkin did require some serious help.  It was a thick pumpkin! 

 But I think it turned out awesome!  She did a great job!

Friday night was our Ward party.  Very fun.  Trick or treating door to door in the church to rooms that people decked out.  It was cool. 

Saturday was our friend's baby's first birthday.  She was born on Halloween so it was an appropriately themed birthday party. 

Sunday, we decided to skip the Halloween festivities and spent the evening with my brother's family.  Very fun.  We don't get together often enough.

Pumpkins...a Variety

I threw a Fall Favorites Party (thanks Jill for the awesome idea!) where everyone brings a basket filled with their favorite things about fall.  Then we did a basket exchange so everyone went home with a basket filled with someone ELSE'S favorites.  It was so fun and I especially love learning what other people love about my favorite season.

My favorite things are the colors, smells, sounds, sights, and tastes of fall.  I love baking and being able to make 100 great things during the fall and winter that just seem more appropriate during that time than any other time of year.  Sure, I could make caramel apples in March, but they're so much better in October.  I love candles, decorations, and crafts of fall too. 

This fall, I did a few new things that I discovered I love too.  First, I cooked my first pumpkin and butternut squash.  I wanted to try butternut squash and find out what was so great about it.  So I made a soup out of it...and didn't like it.  Anyone have a killer recipe for anything with butternut squash?  I'd love to try again. 

In cooking the pumpkin, I discovered that it becomes my absolute FAVORITE color!  Look at it!  It is stunning and has always been my favorite.  But I had never seen it in nature besids in some flowers.  Oh my goodness.  If I could just preserve that, I could look at it all day.  I love that color!

I made the pumpkin because I wanted to try making a pumpkin pie from a fresh pumpkin.  Yes, you need a baking pumpkin, or sugar pumpkin, for pies.  The jack-o-lantern pumpkins aren't the same thing.  I'm not exactly sure why I didn't take a picture of the pies, but they were delicious!  Then again, my mom's pumpkin chiffon pie is always delicious, so I wasn't surprised, but I loved having done it all from scratch.  No cans included.

 My SIL told me about toilet paper pumpkins and looked it up online and found a tutorial on Chocolate on My Cranium.  So easy, so fun, and the girls had a great time doing it. 

A few more of my favorite things...

October : Part II

My friend has twin daughters that are 9 years old.  K&T love them.  Adore them.  And the twins adore them back.  Well, school was out for 2 days a couple weeks ago and my friend needed a place for them to go so they spent the two days with us.  SO fun!

They live in an apartment, so they took advantage of being able to rake our leaves.  I remember another friend growing up who always loved raking our leaves for the same reason...:)

Keara and Taryn loved it.  The girls raked a huge pile...

then sat in it...

then jumped in it...

 then stuck it down their shirts...

Keara loved being a part of the raking action too.  Thanks girls for teaching her how to do it!

 I just like this picture of Taryn--

 We did quite a few crafts and other projects, like making 10 dozen cookies and a dozen caramel apples.  Plus they did playdough and discovered how fun it was to imprint their body parts in the playdough.  Ears, mouths, eye brows, etc.  They thought it was hilarious.  Then they realized they could stick the dough to the door and press their faces in it.  So funny. 

We went back outside and I strung string on some sticks they had found to make bows and they collected smaller twigs for arrows and then they "hunted" the deer (yours truly).  They thought it was hilarious.  Very creative girls.  After that, the sticks became broomsticks for a Quidditch game.

 We also worked on paper mache pumpkins.  The older girls were VERY helpful with that.   

 Kind of cute...kind of not...

Still, it was SO fun doing very autumn-like things for two whole days!

October's Over, Might as Well Post : Part 1

Wow, October's already over.  Christmas is in just 7 weeks.  Can you believe that?!  Honestly, 7 weeks ago was already 2 weeks past Labor Day.  Doesn't that seem like it was just yesterday?  It does to me.  While I have 98% of my Christmas gifting done and sitting in my basement, I still feel overwhelmed with it just being 7 weeks away.

Anyway, can I just say how much I LOVE having a real autumn again!?!  It has been GORGEOUS.  Absolutely stunning.  And I can't get enough of it.  The colors, the trees, the leaves, the wind, the cold, the smells, the food...ahh...I love it!

This October was VERY full and very fun.  Here's a highlight of our month:

For our anniversary, we started off the day going to an apple orchard.  It was free and a lot of fun. 

They had this little corn maze that we could go thru and had a fun time picking dead corn and talking about it.  Very educational :)

There was this great little wooden train play area that the kids had a great time in.

 Then there were hayrides every 2 minutes or so all over the grounds. 

Taryn was a little disappointed that we didn't buy this really big pumpkin.  But nothing is ever cheap at an apple orchard store is it?

That night, Braden and I went to the Science Museum to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit.  It was cool, but I was a little disappointed that they brought tiny, tiny scraps of only 5 scrolls for the exhibit.  But the first hour of the exhibit, learning about the history of the scrolls, was cool.  Then we went out to eat at a restaurant using restaurant.com's $25 gift certificates for only $3 deal.  It was delicious!  And saved us a bunch of money.  It was a great night and we had so much fun.

Pictureless

I just noticed that I have hardly had a picture on my blog since August.  Sorry about that.  It's because someone must have eaten my memory card from my camera and the battery hardly charges.  So I can usually get a couple pictures before the camera dies and needs to be recharged.  I am looking for a new camera.  I do, however, have quite a few pics coming over the next few days, so in case you were about to boycot my blog due to the lack of photography, give it another day...

Apple Pie Anyone?

My friend picked up a 40-lb. box of apples for me the other day.  For $10.  Can't beat that!  But now that I had 40-lbs. of apples, I needed to do something with it.  So I made apple pie filling and am currently working on applesauce and apple butter.  The recipe for the apple pie filling is different than I've ever used and I LOVE it.  We made apple crisp last night and it was incredible.  It's a recipe I put together to suit my tastes because I like a lot of spice and flavor to my pies and crisps.  And I love how it turned out. 

Since I have a habit of losing things, I thought I'd get this written down so I could find it later.  And you get to benefit from it.  The first is my modified apple pie recipe for canning.  The second is just my apple pie recipe if you wanted to make it without canning the filling first.

CANNED APPLE PIE FILLING

2 cups white sugar
3 cups brown sugar
1 cup corn starch
4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 cup lemon juice
9 cups water
Lots of apples, peeled, cored, and sliced

Mix together sugars, cornstarch and spices in a large pot.  Add water and lemon juice. Stir well.  Simmer over medium-low heat until thick and bubbly.  Remove from heat.  Add apples until well coated without a lot of excess sauce.  Pour into clean, prepared jars.  Boil lids for 3 minutes and place on clean rims of jars.  Process in boiling water bath for 20 minutes. 

BEST EVER APPLE PIE

1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
Dash of allspice
1/4 cup butter
1 tsp lemon juice

6 cups apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
Pie pastries or crumble for top

Mix together sugars, flour, and spices.  Cut in butter until crumbly.  Mix with apples until coated.  Pour into prepared pan, either lined with pie pastry or lightly sprayed.  Bake at 400 degrees for 35-40 minutes.

CRUMBLE

½ cup brown sugar
½ cup flour
½ cup oats
¼ tsp salt
1 ½ tsp cinnamon
5 Tbs butter, diced

CRUST

1 cup + 2 Tbs butter
3 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 Tbs sugar
½ cup ice water

ENJOY!