Christmas 2009

I wasn't nearly as good at taking pictures on this trip to California as I was last time, but that was over a year ago and things were much different. Back then I only had one child, and he wasn't even crawling yet. It was a lot of fun, though, and I'll post what I have.

We left when Robert got off work on Wednesday night, the 23rd. We were heading out of town by 4:45 and made it to Sonora at 5:00am, so it took just about 12 hours. And that was with stops and everything to let Craig walk around and to feed Ethan. Ethan is a great night traveler, but Craig struggled. We all went to sleep when we got there and recuperated pretty well. Christmas Eve we spent preparing the appetizers that were our portion of Christmas dinner, napping, and that evening we went to Laura and Dustin's house. Anna and Mark showed up and it was so fun to watch Craig run around with all the kids. There were nine kids, total, and four of them were 2 or under, so it was crazy. But we loved it.

We were staying at my parents' house but were planning on opening presents at Laura's Christmas morning, so Christmas Eve we just set out Craig and Ethan's stockings (I love the dollar store) and a train set.

This was what it looked like the next morning after they got up.

(Robert did this.)

Craig had fun and Ethan was oblivious. It was really fun for us to have a child who, for the first time, was old enough to play with the toys and really enjoy it, even though he still won't get the whole concept until next year.

I forgot to take pictures the rest of that day and the next, but we pretty much opened presents, talked, ate, and enjoyed each others' company. Dinner was great and I really loved being around my family again.

Saturday was our last day before heading home, so we went to Columbia (a little gold rush ghost town with some great little shops--it's a family tradition to go there whenever we're in town). Laura, Anna, the kids, my mom, and I went and met an old friend of mine from school. It was great to see Maggie and meet her fiance and her little girl. As a side note, I just want to say that I love the way all this modern technology and these social networking sites bring people back together. There are many downsides to the internet, but there definitely is a purpose for it, too.

We took naps that afternoon then headed out at about 5:00pm. It took us longer to get back and Craig had a MUCH harder time this time, but we pulled in at about 7:30 (that's with gaining one hour at the border) and went straight to bed. We all slept til about noon and were pretty lazy all day. It seems we're also coming down with some colds, so we're laying low, but glad to be home. I miss being around my family more, but life is what it is. I'm just glad we live close enough to go home for Christmas!


P.S. Here's some of the things they got spread out on our floor this morning (and you'll see our humble little tree in the background).

We got Craig some Mega Lego blocks and, his favorite thing, a real drill (it's on the bottom right). We just took the bit out. He loves any tools and anything electric/battery operated. There's also a Cars book from my parents in the middle there. Ethan got a humidifier and bath toys that he's going to share with Craig until he can use them. :) Robert got me a hand mixer and I got him a small mandolin slicer. Oh! And my mom got us girls the Pioneer Woman cookbook! I am so excited and have been trying to get to reading it all day. You can check out her website using the link to the right under Mommy Blogs.

P.P.S. Here's a quick picture to show how big Ethan is getting. I pulled this out today from storage and he loved it! It bought me an extra 20 minutes to do some work with my classes for next semester.

Roasted Applesauce and Spong Toffee

I forgot to take pictures, but I wanted to share with you an awesome new recipe I found for applesauce and one for something called sponge toffee or Honeycomb. They make great, inexpensive Christmas gifts that are also quick and easy.

Since we are tight on cash this Christmas, I made a batch of this applesauce, put it in jars, decorated the jars a little, and gave them to a few of our friends. It's really simple.

To make about three pints:
16 apples (peeled, cored, and chopped)
1 cup apple cider (or juice if you have to)
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg

Preheat oven to 400. Mix everything in a bowl, spread on a buttered cookie sheet, and bake until apples are soft, about 30-45 mins., stirring occasionally. Mash the apples with juices. (A food processor makes this part super easy, but you don't need it.)

Honeycomb
AKA Sponge Toffee

3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup corn syrup
2 tsp. baking soda

This took me three tries to get it right, so I will try to give you proper instructions to hopefully make it even easier for you.

Line a 9x13 pan with foil or wax paper. Combine sugar and corn syrup in a medium to large sauce pan (you want to have enough room for the the mixture to expand when you add the baking soda). Cook, stirring, over medium-low heat. Once sugar begins to melt, stop stirring and swirl the mix frequently to prevent burning. Swirl, don't stir anymore. Watch it carefully until it reaches a dark yellow color. If you're unsure of how far to let it color, it's better to err on the side of too light that too dark. Remember, it will continue cooking for a minute in the center even after it's out of the pan. When the right color is reached, remove from heat and stir in the baking soda. It will foam up. Immediately get it onto the wax paper or foil and let it harden. Once cooled, you can eat it plain or, as I prefer, break it off in chunks, dip it in melted chocolate, and set on wax paper to cool. When all I had left was a little chocolate and some small pieces and crumbs, I mixed it all together and spooned it in piles onto wax paper and let cool--it was sort of like a crunch bar.

Little Man

I just thought that Craig looked so much like a little man. He put on Robert's hat and shoes, so I had to take a picture. (He's so serious, too.)

This was the first time Ethan has really used his hands to play with a toy, so I had to take a picture. He's concentrating so hard, and it occupied him for quite a while.

Candlemaking

I made a recipe that called for Gulf Wax to be added to some melted chocolate, but I only used about 1/8 of what came in the box. It looked like I had enough left over to make a candle. I thought about it one night, then Googled some info on it, but came up with this:

The picture's not very good (it looked better on the camera). It's Peppermint Vanilla scented. All in all, I spent about $2 on this candle, and that was for the wax. There was a little left over, too. I already had the jar and for the color I used some broken crayons that I got from the primary closet. For the scent, I used food flavorings and for the wick, I just used some cotton string that I had for crocheting. Once I thought about it, I realized they are really simple to make. You just melt the wax in a double-boiler (I used a metal bowl over a pot of water), add the crayons until you get the color you want, then add the flavorings. I found it takes quite a bit of flavoring. I braided the wick (as I learned on Google) so it will last longer. Then you wrap the wick around a pencil and rest the pencil on the top of the jar and pour in the wax. As is cools, the center sucks in like a vacuum, so I just remelted the left over wax and topped it off when the jar was mostly cool. I read something that said to put it in the fridge to cool, but I'd say no. The wax begins to crack around the edges if it cools too quickly. When cool, just snip the wick.

To decorate it, I cut a fabric circle, screwed the lid down on it, and used a fine point sharpie to write the scent on the top. I had that red, spiral bead that I made at an activity last Valentine's Day, so I tied a ribbon through it, printed the star tag, tied it on the ribbon, and tied the ribbon around the jar. That's it! It was really simple and I think I've discovered my new hobby! I gave this one to a neighbor for Christmas.

Temple Lights

Last week we went to see the lights at the temple. I am so grateful to be living so close to a temple and to be able to begin this family tradition. They have live music every evening, too. Here are just a few pictures. Of course, a camera cannot do it justice--you really have to be there. But I hope you get the idea.


These next two pictures go together--that star was above the manger (and I didn't even really try to get them to match like that, but they go together perfectly.)

(I took this one as we drove by the front, that's why it's a little blurry.)

This last one you see often around here. When in Rome...

Ethan "Baby Face" Leal

I thought it was time to let you all know what Ethan's up to these days since he's now three months old. We've passed that milestone known as the Fourth Trimester. He's now more baby than fetus, and I'm more Me than Pregnant Me. Don't get me wrong, plenty of Pregnant Me is hanging on and she probably will be for a while, but it's just that I feel more like myself. I think most of you know what I mean.

(Craig likes closing the flash while I'm taking a picture.)

Ethan is still a very good, very peaceful little baby. He's easy to put to sleep (he mostly just nods off on his own once I take him over by is crib, stick the pacifier in, and hold him against my chest for a minute) and he's happy to sit and observe the world around him when he's fed and well rested. He's not a demanding eater, either. In fact, he's pretty flexible. As long as I feed within three or four hours of the previous feeding, he's happy. After 4 hours, though, he'll start to let you know he's hungry. But not too loudly. He also smiles a lot. He loves to be tickled, talked to, smiled at, and spit at (you know...ttthhhhppppttt). And he loves to blow bubbles and try to spit back. If there's chaos going on and everyone needs something from Mommy all at the same time, Ethan is content to sit and wait his turn, for the most part. He just requires the occasional re-plugging of the pacifier.

But, there is a "but." I would consider this little man the absolute perfect baby, except for one thing. Gas. It's sad, really, because it's not his fault. The poor little guy suffers from the most troubling gas and intestinal discomfort. And I thought Craig was bad. Craig still slept well at night, for the most part, but Ethan is the baby that is restless, disturbed, and fussy all...night...long. For example, five nights out of the week, I get an average of 5 hours sleep, with no more than 2 hours consecutively. Once in a while, he'll sleep well. Like Monday night when he slept 6 hours straight and I kept thinking he was dead. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to enjoy it because I kept waking up every hour anyway, just to make sure he was breathing and to readjust my increasingly uncomfortable and growing load up front. I was grateful when he finally woke up. But, alas, that was just a fluke night. Last night I got 3 1/2 hours. Total. Sigh.

For the record, I LOVE the cuddly newborn/baby phase, but there is a reason they grow out of it quickly. The parents wouldn't survive it for much longer than a few months. I keep waiting for him to outgrow this discomfort/gas issue. We use the Mylicon drops and the gripe water, and they work a little. But his system just has to mature. I seem to recall Craig outgrowing it around four months. We'll see. In the meantime, I just force myself to find joy everyday in how easy he is the rest of the time. I try to overlook the time between 7:00pm and 6:00am.

Here's more from my Baby Face boy. This video is to show his cute smile, and how Craig acts when the camera's around.

Which one would you put on your desktop?

This, flying, and horsie rides are Craig's and my new tricks. (Is that grammatically correct? It sounds weird.)


I love the moments when I walk into a room and see things like this. I guess when you're a year and a half old, sitting on your car, on Daddy, on the couch is much more fun than scooting around on the floor.

I find it difficult to do photo shoots with Ethan like I used to do with Craig when he was a baby. When Craig was a baby, there wasn't an older sibling eager to run up and flip him over or take the camera away from me or shut the flash in the middle of a picture. Here, I was taking this picture of Ethan on his stomach, and Craig ran over and flopped down next to him. Okay, I thought, this is a cute one. This is now the wallpaper on our desktop.


But maybe this one should be. It's moments like these that make your heart happy...and make you grateful to have a spouse to smile and entertain the kids while you take a picture.

Mrs. Kringle's Bake Off, or The Cookie that Decided the Fate of a Kingdom

This post is my entry into a cookie bake off featured in the button on the right. Click on that button after Dec. 7th to vote for me and spread the word! The contest goes through the 9th.

Before I get to the recipe and reveal Santa's Favorite Cookie (that's the theme this year), I want to tell a little story about this cookie. This is a story of how I came across this recipe (or the original version of it), how it took root as our family's favorite cookie, and thereby why it is "Santa's" favorite cookie. (This is all part of the contest, too.) Here it goes.

There once was a young maiden who liked to cook. She enjoyed exploring various taste combinations, seeing what she could throw together from what she had in the cottage cupboards, and she especially liked to bake. Mostly she liked to eat. But that's another story. In this story, this young maiden went away to school. There, she had a most benevolent instructor who treated the entire class to homemade oatmeal cookies. The maiden thought they were yummy, but they could be absolutely delectable with a few alterations. She asked the instructor for the recipe and she kindly granted it.

Before the maiden could try them out on her roommates, she met a handsome young prince. As luck would have it, the dashing young prince was an accomplished cook himself! Who better to try a new recipe on than someone who knows food? So, as they continued seeing one another, the young maiden concocted a plan. She wanted the young prince to know just how much she adored him.

One day, she called the handsome prince while he was away from home and told a lie...just a little one. Little lies are okay when perfect oatmeal cookies are involved between a young maiden and her handsome prince. She told him she had left her cell phone in his castle the day before and she really needed it and could not wait until he got home. So, she met him in the forest while he was hunting, got the key to his castle, and went over. Well, of course she hadn't forgotten her phone. She wanted to get in so she could cook him a lovely dinner, and have it waiting for him when he came home. She wanted the smell of those wonderful oatmeal cookies to be wafting through the castle to fill the prince's lungs as he swung open the door, tired from a long, hard day. Her plan worked, of course. She had even gone back out to meet the prince and return his key to him, so he could not possibly suspect a thing.

As the prince rode his trusty steed home to his castle, he called the maiden. They spoke during his ride, as they did every night. They spoke as he parked...I mean gave his horse to the stableman...as he pulled out his key, as he unlocked the door, and as he swung it open. And just as the maiden had imagined, the aromas socked the prince in the face. He paused mid sentence and said, "You're in my castle."

And she laughed a dainty laugh.

They ate, they talked, they enjoyed each other's company. The dinner she had prepared was simple, yet unbeknownst to her, it was a long-time favorite of the prince's. She smiled gratifyingly inside. Then the maiden presented the cookies. She had made some changes, some additions, and was anxious to see what he thought with his culinary expertise.

The prince took one bite...he tasted it...he then made a shocking declaration. He told her that oatmeal cookies are his favorite type of cookie. He said that he's had a hard time eating them homemade by other people because no one ever seems to get it just right. He said he always finds an element missing.

But...

but...

These were PERFECT! (And he wasn't exaggerating.) If you hadn't already guessed, the young maiden and the handsome prince went on to get married and live happily ever after. And it was all due to the oatmeal cookies.

By the way, since the prince went on to be "Santa" to his children, and since these really are his favorite cookies and they tend to magically vanish right before your eyes, I think it's highly appropriate to name these Santa's Vanishing Oatmeal Cookies.

(Yes, the maiden portrays moi, Queen Sherry, and the handsome prince is my husband, King Robert. And yes, he is a chef, and everything in the story is true. I really did break into his apartment and cook him dinner. I made chicken enchiladas, salad, and my now famous oatmeal cookies, or they will be famous after this. However, Robert wasn't really hunting when I got the key. He was working. Hunting just seemed like a more princely thing to do.)

Santa's Vanishing Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup butter (softened)
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla (plus a dash more for you vanilla lovers)
1 1/2 to 2 cups flour (I use closer to 2 cups here in the kingdom of Mesa)
1 tsp. baking soda
1 heaping tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
3 cups old fashioned oats
1/4 cup dried cranberries (optional)
1/4 cup white chocolate chips (optional)
1/4 cup chopped macadamia nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Blend the butter and sugars until smooth. Add the eggs and vanilla (I use the extra dash). Add flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, and oats and mix until well blended. Mix in the cranberries, chips, and nuts. Bake for about 8-10 minutes, or until tops barely begin to turn golden.

Note: I usually vary the additions at the end depending on the time of year, but Santa likes the Christmas-y ones. They're even fabulous without any additions.

Watch out! They'll disappear before you know it! (I'm surprised I was even able to get this picture.)