Christmas Cooking!

I don't have time to post pictures right now. It's Christmas Eve for goodness sake! We're about to head out the door for our Christmas Eve service. Oh, I do have to cook dinner really quick too!

Anyway...I just wanted to share some of the fun and easy things the children and I did together this year in the kitchen! All three always like to help mom in the kitchen!

We made sugar cookies. We cut some out with Christmas cookie cutters, placed smashed up pieces of candy cane on top of others, and we iced some with a delicious cream cheese frosting (and of course we added some festive Christmas sprinkles to the top).

Today I needed to make something to take to Grandma's house. I had a devil's food cake mix and some leftover candy canes. So, I made cake mix cookies! Did you know you could make cookies out of a cake mix? I discovered this about one year ago!!! So very cool and easy!

Recipe:
one cake mix, 1/2 cup oil, and 2 eggs, 2 cups add-ins.

Yep, that's it! How simple is that? So far we've had chocolate chocolate chip, snickerdoodle (yellow cake mix rolled in cinnamon and sugar mixture), banana cake mix cookies, and today, I took the devil's food cake mix and made the cookie dough...dropped them out in a good rounded teaspoon, and topped them with crushed peppermint candy canes. I figured since I like peppermint mochas and peppermint hot chocolate, these cookies wouldn't be too bad. They look pretty too!

We also made homemade blueberry muffins with a crumb topping. My dh's favorite muffin is blueberry, so he requested these for our Christmas breakfast! The girls had a ton of fun helping me put the yummy cinnamon crumb topping on top!

Well, Merry Christmas! Hope you all have enjoyed some fun baking! We really cut back this year on all the dipping and truffles because we are really trying to cut back on our sugar intake...but it's just not Christmas without a little baking:-) I just heard my 2yo daughter say, "Oh no, Mommy, that's too much sugar!" LOL!!!! They've heard that a lot this week..."no more sugar!". They've gotten candy in the stockings, goodies shipped to them from their adoptive grandma from a former church, and now all the things we've baked this week.

Blessings,
Nikki

Ice Storm and Wisdom Teeth!

I totally forgot that I have not blogged about this!

Early on Tuesday morning, December 11th we lost all electricity. In this house, this means you have no heat, no hot water, and no way to cook a thing! I had an appointment to get all 4 wisdom teeth removed. The electricity temporarily came back on, so we thought they must be working on it, and it would be back on permanently soon. So, I called the dentist (just 12 miles north of us) and they had power. So, off we went.

I have never had any dental work done in my life (except for exams, x-rays, and cleanings). So, this was pretty intense. I was not completely out...but let's just say...if I could do it all over again, I would have paid the extra bucks to go to an oral surgeon...LOL!!!! I made it through fine though and am recovering quite well!

Anway...back to ice storm...we were without power from Tuesday-Saturday. We slept comfortably in our basement at night. The basement was 10-15 degrees warmer than the upstairs. We have a sectional that has a pull-out couch, and we also have a trundle bed that we pulled up close to the other bed. The children thought it was one HUGE slumber party! On Wednesday, we spent some time at the library just north of us because their town had power. On Thursday, we spent some time at the community center because a shelter/warming center was set up there. We really had a good time as a family! We played games, painted by sunlight, read, told stories, took drives in the van because all the main roads were clear. The funniest thing I saw the children do was when they took the couch cusions and rode them like horses! Their imaginations amaze me, and I'm so thankful they can play and entertain themselves in that way!

On Friday morning, it was way too cold upstairs, so we took our friends up on an offer to let us come stay there (they live 3 hours away though). We went there b/c the power company was still predicting our power would not be back on for a few more days! So, we took all our dirty clothes with us, and made our way to their house. Then, Saturday we got our power back!

December has been full of winter weather. We are adjusting, especially after living in the mid-south for the last 3 winters. The children are getting a lot of use out of their boots and snow bibs, that's for sure!

Lottie Moon Offering

Every Christmas, Southern Baptist Churches everywhere take up the annual Lottie Moon Christmas Offering! Dh and I always pray about what the Lord would want our family to give. Today, I was cleaning up our bedroom, and noticed the little decorative box on top of our dresser that holds all our loose change. I asked the children to come and help me count the money. I thought it would be a great idea to take this loose change and add it to our family's offering. After we were done counting all the coins, we prayed over it, and asked the Lord to bless the missionaries that would benefit from the money.

My 5yo dd's prayer went something like this, "Dear Jesus, please be with all the missionaries as they go from place to place to preach." My 6yo ds prayed for the missionaries to have plenty of Bibles to give to people. My 2yo dd thanked God for Jesus, Mary, and Joseph (can you tell she's been learning about the birth of Christ?).

In no way, am I recommending ONLY giving God your loose change, but I do wonder how much money we have lying around that we don't even realize? Check under your couch cusions, ashtray in your car, the floor boards of your car, washing machines/dryer, etc... Why not get a jar to place in your kitchen and collect your loose change throughout the year? You will be surprised how quickly those pennies, nickles, dimes, and quarters add up! Perhaps next Christmas you could give more to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering (or similar offering in your church), or help a needy family in your community?

Oh Christmas Tree!

Well, on December 7th, we finally got our Christmas tree up! I've never been so LATE putting up a tree in all my life, but this is also my first year decorating a real tree! My husband always had real Christmas trees growing up, and he loves the way they look and smell! So, this year we decided to go for it! He was just as excited as the children about going and picking out our very own Christmas tree! Honestly, I was dreading it. I just knew a real tree would stink up the house, make a mess, maybe catch on fire, and someone would surely be allergic. But, once we got it in the house, I totally changed my mind when we got the magnificent thing inside our house! It is gorgeous! The lights are so much more concealed in a real tree compared to an artificial. The smell is not over-powering, just subtle and delightful! I did have to vacuum the needles up after we got it moved in and decorated, but I think that's a small price to pay. I can't believe I missed out on this beautiful thing as a child! We always had artificial!

We had plans on going to a tree farm on a Saturday, ride out in the farm, cut our own down, but the weather has turned bad and we had a window of opportunity to get our tree yesterday (Friday) so we took the chance we had. I couldn't stand waiting another week:-) But, maybe next year we'll add to the excitement of getting a real tree by going to an actual tree farm, rather than a tree lot in the city:-) But, I do believe I've had about all the surprise and excitement I could stand!

Here's some pics of the children enjoying the trees!

I'm Thankful for...

This post is coming a little late, but I wanted to do it anyway. On Thanksgiving Day, we asked the children to tell us some things they are thankful for. These are their responses, in their own words.

Tyler: food, fire, and ants.

Kaitlyn: toys, our days that we have good times and fun times, and houses, and churches, and for Jesus.

Lauren: Jesus house, family, presents, daddy, momma, and my birthday.

I know Tyler said food b/c we were surrounded by food, and the fire was prompted by the candles on the table, and ants...well, the kid just likes bugs! Kaitlyn just tends to go on and on, and she really does have a heart of praise and thanksgiving! When Lauren said "Jesus house," we really don't know if she's talking about church, or is thankful for the "Jesus book" (this is what she calls her children's Bible).

We spent the entire day at home, just the 5 of us. We chose to not travel because it's precious to have some time alone together at home with nothing on our to-do list. We all enjoyed spending some time playing out in our first snow of the year, and I was able to start some Christmas decorating.

Kaitlyn always wants to be my helper in the kitchen. There wasn't much cooking she could help me do, but I did put her in charge of setting and decorating the table. Here is a picture of her finished place setting. She wanted to fold the napkins in triangles:-) We also don't get our snowman dishes out until after Thanksgiving, but we decided they would be a nice touch since we did have a white Thanksgiving here.