Christmas 2013

Here it is the last day of 2013.

Jack is deep into a new book.
Kayla is working quite independently on her sewing machine.
Sammy is scrubbing the marker off his face that served to camouflage him for a while.
Lucy has been playing peacefully with her dollhouse.
I love moments like this.
Before we hit the New Year, I want to be sure to remember this Christmas.  It was a little different because we stayed here for Christmas morning. 
A snapshot of Christmas Eve:  caroling with friends in the morning, delivering baked treats, playing games, a cold bike ride for the kids, enjoying the company of a friend for our Christmas Eve dinner, and a Christmas Eve service at our "old" church.
Christmas  Day:  an early start (of course!), kids playing with new toys for several hours (!!), a car ride to Mimi and Papa's.
Overall, enjoyable time with family, my side and Brian's.  Good food everywhere.  Fun cousin time.  Sweet memories.

One of my most favorite moments of the season

Favorite Christmas Recipes

To our kids-
It's Christmas baking day!  (again!)
I don't know what you'll remember about Christmas in our home.
Maybe the smell of sweet treats baking?
There are some things that you want to make every year- gingerbread and pretzel treats and our birthday cake for Jesus.
And some things that I want to make- lemon cranberry bread and Christmas cookies.  Just in case you are looking at a blog book twenty years from now and wishing for some recipes, here they are!

 
Pretzel Treats

Warm your oven to around 200 degrees.

Lay out pretzels on a baking sheet.

Unwrap Hershey Hugs and put one on each pretzel.

Bake in the oven for 2-3 minutes or until the chocolate is beginning to melt.

Remove from oven and immediately press an M&M (or two) on top of the melting chocolate.

Let them sit until the chocolate has hardened, usually several hours.

Mom's (Mimi's) Christmas Cookies

1 pound chopped dates

1/2 jar chopped cherries

1/4 pound walnuts/pecans

2 eggs

1 1/2 cup sugar

2 sticks butter

2 1/2 cup flour

1 t. baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

Cream sugar and butter.  Add eggs. Mix well.

Mix the dry ingredients and mix in a little at a time to the sugar/butter mixture.

Stir in the dates, cherries, and nuts.

Bake at 350 for 8-12 minutes.

*We have a nut allergy in our house so no nuts at all in our cookies.

 

Cranberry Lemon Loaf

 Beat until well blended:

1 8oz. block of cream cheese

1/3 cup softened butter

1 1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla (we used 2)

Add three eggs, one at a time.

Stir in 2 Tblsp lemon juice

1 tsp lemon peel

Toss together:

1 1/2 cup chopped cranberries

2 1/4 cup flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

Add cream cheese mixture to flour/cranberry mixture until moistened.

Pour into greased and floured bread pan.

Bake at 325 for 1 hour, 15 minutes.

                             (We used mini-loaf pans and baked at 350 for around 30 minutes.)

Finally is our Christmas morning birthday cake for Jesus.  I don't have a picture but we make this each year.  Delicious!

Grandma's Sour Cream Coffee Cake

1 package yellow cake mix

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup sour cream

3/4 cup oil (scant)

1/4 tsp salt

3 rounded tsps brown sugar

2 rounded tsps cinnamon

4 eggs

Grease and flour tube pan.

Mix first seven ingredients with the blender well.

Add eggs one at a time.  Beat well after each one.

Bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes in tube pan. 

Glaze while still hot with 1/2 cup sifted confectioner sugar and 1 tablespoon warm water.

Preschool Christmas

Preschoolers dressed as shepherds, wise men, farm animals, angels, an innkeeper, Mary, Joseph.

It would be hard to find anything much sweeter.

Songs and a tiny bit of hectic

and a whole lot of cuteness.

Christmas Books

One of my favorite ways to slow down and enjoy the Christmas season is by reading good books with our kids.  It is too easy to get carried away in "doing" that we forget why we're doing it.   It's also too easy to get so busy that we don't just come together as a family. I want to share a few we've enjoyed, some old, some new.  I love hearing things like, "Oh yeah!  I remember that story!" or "Read this one, Mom!"

*Most mornings, the kids and I read Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room by Nancy Guthrie.  There's a short devotion on advent for every day leading up to Christmas.  It's written for families- simple enough for kids yet full of truth.
*The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson was new to me this year and I loved it!  I got teary at the end of this chapter book.  Imagine children who have never heard the real Christmas story, throw in a lot of humor, and you've got a wonderful read-aloud.  (There were a couple of places I chose to skip- benefit of reading aloud!)
*The Peterkin's Christmas was also new this year.  The Peterkins, from The Peterkin Papers are silly and funny as they get their "you-know-what" ready for Christmas in this picture book.  Sammy and Lucy especially like this one.
*Something else we enjoy is reading a Christmas chapter out of most of our Little House books.  Most (if not all) of the books have one.  Today we read "Mr. Edwards Meets Santa Claus" from Little House on the Prairie.  It was a cozy read that gave us an idea about what a frontier Christmas could have been like.
*Some others, though not all, that we like this time of year:
Snowmen At Christmas by Caralyn Buehner
Silver Packages by Cynthia Rylant
The Legend of the Candy Cane by Lori Walburg
The Little Fir Tree by Margaret Wise Brown

Dancing

These two get their own wedding post.
Sammy might be a regular Fred Astaire.  He loves to dance, especially when Lucy will dance with him.  I think he just likes to twirl her.  I love it.

Wedding with the Cousins

Two weeks ago, the "Ohio cousins" spent the week with Granny and Grandpa while their parents took off for a Tennessee getaway.  I think the kids had a great time- going to the movies, doing some school together, playing...
At the end of the week, we all went to a wedding. 

Is all the red making Sam cross-eyed??

Love this.

And this.  (Brian with his mom)

The rock candy favors were a hit with all the kids.

I have no idea what these two were up to but it looks suspicious!

Washington, DC Trip

We waited out a snow/ice storm and headed to Washington, DC earlier this week with my parents.  The word for the week was:  COLD.  We layered up and walked a lot and had a pretty good time doing it.  I asked everyone for one word to describe the trip.  Here's some of what I heard:  supercalifragalistic, awesome, fun, exciting.  We hit three museums:  Natural History, American History, and Air and Space. 

On the mall with the Capitol behind them

Overall, it seems like the Air and Space Museum was the most fun for the kids.  There were so many interactive things for them to do.   Jack really enjoyed the military display at the American History Museum.

In a plane that real pilots use when they are learning

We found out that Sammy would weigh 8 pounds on the moon.

Kayla had fun at the American History Museum the presidential section.  You could choose an inaugural address from a short list and read it on the teleprompter.

Her favorite display was the one about Gabby Douglas, the Olympic gymnast.

The girls and I on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.  The Reflection Pool and Washington Monument are behind us.

 
All of us in front of the Lincoln Memorial.  What an impressive tribute.

Jack and my Dad walking around the memorial.

We made the long hike from the Lincoln Memorial to the White House.  As we walked through the Vietnam War Memorial a fox walked in front of us.  Seeing a fox in the middle of a big city seemed odd.  On the way we saw the World War II Memorial, too.

The National Christmas Tree behind us

 
Mom and Dad

I think Sammy's favorite thing was riding the subway.  It was pretty fun!

 
It felt soooo good to get to the hotel and get warm. 

Lucy is 4!

There's so much to catch up on!  Especially when I remember that this blog serves as our photo book and our family journal.  I'm missing a lot! 
Let's start with Lucy's birthday.  She turned 4 on December 10!  It really does seem like we were just bringing her home from the hospital and settling in for a cold, snowy winter.  She sure has turned out to be a spunky one!  She has a quick smile and a wonderful ability to play all on her own or to keep up with the big kids.  She's good with "girly" things or trucks and nerf guns.  She sings a lot and keeps us all laughing. 
As is usually the case, her birthday was "extended."  She had ice cream sundaes with her Ohio cousins and went to the movies.  Then she had a little party at my parents' house before heading to Washington, DC for a mini-vacation.  Her birthday cereal of choice was just like everyone else's has been- Lucky Charms.
Happy Birthday, sweet Lucy!  We love you!