Baking weekend with the kids

For the past several years I have taken one weekend in December when they are with me to do nothing but Christmas activities and baking. It’s one weekend out of the year where there is nothing on the TV but Christmas movies, the ipod is playing Christmas music and the books we read are about the Christmas season.

Friday night we started the weekend with the Grinch that stole Christmas and popcorn.

All the kids got new Christmas pajamas to wear today. Noelle and Karly were especially happy about theirs because they came with matching nightgowns for their baby’s.

Then the kids and I sat down and talked about who we should deliver our goodies that we make to. I had some friends and family that I wanted to take them to and each of the kids got to pick one special friend.

Noelle and Thomas sat and wrote out the tags. Since my kitchen is pretty small they each picked what treat they would help make. Then the other kids waited their turn they watched watch a couple of Christmas movies and colored Christmas pictures.

 

Karly went first and make Cake batter chocolate bark. She was especially excited about the sprinkles she got to add to the top.

That of course is the one we kept for us. LOL

Noelle made some chocolate peppermint drop cookies and some peppermint fudge.

 

Thomas made chocolate mint fudge and turtle bark. The chocolate mint fudge was amazing. Definitely something we will make again next year. 

Hope took her turn and stole a peanut butter cookie while I was busy helping the kids do something.

 

 

We finished that evening of watching Charlie Brown Christmas and pizza. Then the next morning we cleaned up the house and then went and delivered all of our goodies. Noelle, Thomas and Karly loved doorbell ditching everyone. I think they enjoyed that more than they should’ve. I was proud of myself because we didn’t save anything and I only ate a couple of pieces of the mint fudge. Yay me!!!

I think this year I bit off a little more than I should’ve as far as how many things we made. I was exhausted by the end of the day. Hopefully I will look back at this post next December and wont make the same mistake. 

Happy Thanksgiving- part two

Thanksgiving day my Mom prepared a fabulous dinner.  Kelly and Dave were able to join us before going to work.  Thomas’ dad allowed him to come and join us for a couple of hours.  We had a great meal, played Memory and had dessert before taking Thomas back to his dads and heading home.  Noelle was able to spend the majority of Thanksgiving week with her Grandma Sammy (Dave’s Mom), so she isn’t in the pictures.

 

Happy Early Thanksgiving everybody…

It’s that season again where Kelly and I look at each other and try and figure out how we are going to make the holidays special for the kids and different from every other Sunday dinner.  We have a very small family and 90% of the time we have dinner on Sunday’s at my Dad’s house so when the holidays come it feels like every other Sunday dinner.  So this year we decided to change it up a little. Kelly invited some of her coworkers that would also be working on Thanksgiving and we invited our good friends Gary, Sandy and Shanna and decided to had a Thanksgiving party the Sunday before.  It was a great day! I hope it becomes an annual thing.  It was potluck style.  The guys all enjoyed watching football while the ladies finished up the food and played with all of the kids.  We had a ton of food and fabulous desserts. With the help of Katie, Kelly made her first pie crust which made delicious pumpkin and apple pies. 

                                                Katie and Baby Brooklyn       Sandy, Gary and Shanna

                                   Dave and his Mom, Coba                   Brian and Denishia

The Mertz Gang—(Noelle didn’t want her picture taken at the moment)

I wish I would have gotten more pictures of everyone else.  Hopefully next year.  It was a great dinner and a great time with family and friends.  Maybe next year we will be able to expand and include more people.  Kelly and I are not quite the party throwers so starting off small was still a little overwhelming for us but definitely worth it!!! 

Happy Easter

This past weekend I celebrated Easter with my Dad and Kelly’s family.  Kelly and Dave have to work on Easter so we just pretended that Easter was Sunday.  The kids didn’t know the difference because they had their Easter lessons at church because of General Conference is on Easter weekend this year. 

Kelly and I had been talking for a couple of weeks about doing a little photo shoot with the kids in their Easter clothes.  I’ve been practicing my photo skills every chance I can get and this would be a perfect opportunity.  In my mind I had imagined some really bright colored flowers and the kids with big happy smiles.  That didn’t happen.  The flowers weren’t bright and the kids’ faces didn’t have big happy smiles.  We left the house late and the kids hadn’t eaten lunch and we were headed to church after our picture session.  I tried to bribe the kids with McDonald's on the way to church if they were good for the pictures.  I was able to get a few good ones out of the m. 

 

Yes, we went to McDonald’s on Sunday and on the way to church.  Not the best decision but it was just one of those days. 

After church we went to my Dad’s and had an Easter egg hunt,

decorated a Easter bunny cake, (I had a little OCD with the Jelly beans)

decorated Easter eggs, 

and had a fabulous Easter dinner that Dad prepared!!! Great family fun.  I can’t wait for this Sunday and celebrate Easter Sunday with Noelle, Mom and Chris!!! My favorite part…. a fabulous Easter dessert!!!!

Christmas Baking

I love to bake during the holidays but I hate having all of it in my house.  Those of you who know me, know that keeping all of the goodies in the house is a midnight “eating behavior” in the making! So, this year I decided to make all of the things that I love to make and give them all away.  Noelle and I got up early Saturday morning and finished just in time for her to take her bath and go to bed.  She had a lot of fun helping and I loved having a helper.

Noelle loved making the popcorn balls that we made for Kelly to take to work for all the ER folks.  I think she liked putting all of the butter on her hands the best.  Some our  finished products. In all we made  3 kinds of fudge, 5 kinds of bark, 2 flavors of popcorn balls, and cookies. Once everything was done I immediately put them in gift bags for all of my co-workers and delivered them on Monday.  It was perfect.  I had a ton of fun with Noelle and I gave it all away.  No midnight “eating behaviors” for me!!!