hard to capture

The kids all got dressed up in their Christmas best on Sunday and I spent a few minutes trying to capture them on film, or should I say in pixels? We tried for the traditional picture of everyone smiling nicely in front of the tree... That did not really work out so well, but what I got instead is so much better, you can almost hear them laughing.

pirates!

As I tied the bandanna on her head, Tallulah stuck her sword in the air and said "Arrr, me hearties!"

ginger bread houses

Last year, while we were visiting MD for Christmas, my mom bought these gingerbread house cookie cutters from William and Sonoma. They proved more difficult to use than we anticipated, but we brought them home with plans to pull them out and try again.
I found a new recipe for gingerbread and royal icing and yesterday we pulled out the cookie cutters to try again. The new recipe (and a few new techniques) seemed to do the trick. I rolled the dough out very thin (about 1/8inch) right on my silicone mats and then cut out the pieces. I also put the cut pieces in the fridge for 15 minutes before baking.
We made two houses, one for me and one for the kids, but there was probably enough dough that I could have made one for each of us (5), as these houses are not too big. I used the rest of the dough to make gingerbread men and house shaped cookies that we will decorate tomorrow. The cookies are okay, a bit bland, but I am sure a bit of icing and a hot cup of tea will make all the difference!
Here is the recipe I used:

Gingerbread House Recipe

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1-1/3 cups molasses
4 eggs
8-10 cups all-purpose flour, divided (I think I used about 9.5 cups)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar until smooth. Stir in the molasses and eggs.
3. Combine 1 1/2 cups of the flour, baking soda, salt, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, and ginger; beat into the molasses mixture.
4. Gradually stir in the remaining flour one cup at a time to form a stiff dough.
5. On silicone mat, roll out dough to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes. Refrigerate for 15 minutes. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

ROYAL ICING
1/4 Cup pasteurized egg whites

3-4 cups powdered confectioner’s sugar, or enough to get a good consistency, not too runny.

Directions: beat until nice foamy stiff peaks form.

I put my icing into a decorators bag and used a small tip to squeeze it out, but you could use a Ziploc back with the corner cut off as well.

tallulah stole the show

The Children's Christmas Program was last night at our church. It was pretty fun. The younger kids sang 5 or 6 songs and a couple of the teens narrated the story of Christ. They elicited some improv acting from the audience which always adds a bit of humor. There were also puppets, but the best part of the show was this...
Tallulah had everyone laughing, as she danced around the stage, chewed the sleeves of her shirt and made raspberries! Somehow I thought if I took her pacifier away that she would sing, but instead she just found something else to put in her mouth. Oh well!

christmas tree cutting... almost!

This will be our 4th Christmas in Southern Virginia. For various reasons (pregnancy, new baby, traveling) we have not ventured out to cut our own tree since moving here. In my family, tree cutting day is a BIG DEAL. It started out small, just a couple of families getting together to go our and hunt our own trees, but seemed to grow bigger with each year. By the time Phil and I were married, the first Saturday of December, you would find us at my Parents house at 9:30am with at least 100 other people ( I am not exaggerating here) eating breakfast and squeezing through the crowd saying hi to friends and family, some of which you only saw at this annual gathering. After breakfast we would all tie red bows on our cars and head out, caravan style, to the a tree farm that my mom and sister had carefully selected. Once we had all found the perfect tree we would all gather together for Sloppy Joe's and hot cocoa and toss the football around. I have many fond memories of this day.

This was a tradition I knew I wanted to continue with my family (only maybe on a smaller scale!) and this was the year we were going to start. We started small and just invited our bible study. We had 14 people here for breakfast (us included) and after a nice morning of fellowship we headed out to the farm with one other family.

They had no idea what they were getting into when they signed on to go with us. The first farm we hit was a total bust. Really it was just someone with a lot of land letting people go out into the woods and hunt a tree. The background in this picture is pretty much what it looked like. It is a miracle neither of us got our cars stuck in the mud as we drove down the dirt road that lead to the tree (or so they said, we never found them)!
The next farm seemed a bit more promising. The kids found a "hill" to roll down and they were happy. The tree's were planted and rows and we saw a number of cars driving away with trees all wrapped up and tied nicely on their cars. I make a sad discovery today though. It turns out that Christmas trees, as I know them, don't grow in southeastern Virginia. Instead they were growing Leland Cyprus and calling it a Christmas tree and another similar looking tree. We stood there amongst the Cyprus trees trying to decide what was more important, having a tree that looked like what my idea of a Christmas tree was, or cutting down our own tree?
In the end we went with the tree that "looked" like a Christmas tree and bought a pre-cut Frazer Fir. I don't regret it. Our tree is gorgeous, but as we drove away, I did have a moment of sadness for our future Christmas tree cutting prospects... either I will have to give up my idea of what a Christmas tree should look like, or I will have to give up cutting my own tree as long as we call Hampton Roads our home.

Here is our attempt at getting a picture in front of our tree, those of you who have multiple kids know how likely that is!

When we got home Regan went to play with a friend and Micah and Max helped me decorate the tree. This was the first time in years that I actually got all my ornaments out (we have been using cheap plastic ones since the kids like to touch so much). I love our tree!

a tiny peek

We are in the midst of Christmas Crafting Fury in our house. Here is a small peek at some of the things we have been working on...
This is our Jesse Tree. We bought this tree last year when we were going to be traveling most of December. This year we will being going out to cut our own tree... a tradition I have missed since moving to Virginia. More pictures to come!

micah's day!

Today Micah is 6! When did he get so big?

We have a family tradition of everyone gathering on mom and dad's bed to open presents early in the morning. Micah loved his new Hess truck from Grandpa and Grandma Bev. He also go a knight and horse that he has been eyeing at Michael's and The Pirate Who Don't Do Anything movie.

He wanted a Playmobil pirate cake, and I had planned to make him one, until I realized that his birthday fell on an Awana night. So, instead I did pirate cupcakes that he can take to Awana and will give him the wooden pirate ship I painted and the Playmobil pirates tonight.
This was my first time using Fondant. It was so much fun! It's like using play dough to decorate your cupcakes. Definitely something I will try again!