Good Morning All,

Well the dust after Christmas is settling so I thought I’d take a moment to blog a little about how our holiday went.

Christmas eve started Neil’s vacation from work. He has combined vacation days with work holidays so he has more time off. Christmas eve also started a blizzard of snow for us. We left the house about 10:45 to run by the pharmacy and pick up Chase’s shots. It looked bad out but not as bad as it was. The wind was going at like 45 mph so the visibility was very poor and the snow was drifting on top of ice. After the pharmacy we went and picked up Neil’s grandparents and then headed to his parents house for lunch. We were in the car a little over 2.5 hours to get all of that done. It should have taken 45 minutes or so. Going from the grandparents to Dan and Mindy’s should have taken about 15 minutes, and it took and hour and a half. IT WAS NUTS!!! It wouldn’t have been so bad but there were so many people out. Many of which were small cars that of course were getting stuck in drifts and ruts that were too high. Neil drove like a pro on the road though. I was impressed.

So we got to Dan and Mindy’s and warmed up and had a yummy Christmas eve dinner with Neil’s family. Mindy made turkey and a spiral ham (yum!) as well as all the yummy sides to go with. Mindy did a great job cooking dinner. Alex decided he liked black olives at dinner. He ate a BUNCH of them.

We took Zoey with us so she could play with Dan and Mindy’s schnauzer Lexi. They are pretty funny to watch. They definitely like each other. We let them outside and it was pretty funny watching them play in the snow. Zoey was all about it. Lexi got into it when Zoey did but got cold faster. Zoey kept burying her face in the snow and running through like a rabbit. It was a lot of fun to watch!!

After dessert we all loaded back up and headed out in to the snow to get home. It only took us a little over an hour to get the Grandparents home and ourselves. There were much much fewer cars on the road and the ice was covered with snow mostly. The drifts were pretty impressive though. We got home finally but couldn’t pull into our driveway because we had well over 2ft snow drifts in the drive. Neil spent another hour or so clearing enough of the driveway so that he could get the car out of the street.

So how much snow did we get total on Christmas eve? 14.1 inches!!!! That’s the most snow EVER for Oklahoma in one full storm, let alone 1 day!!! ITS NUTS!!! The boys have had a BLAST playing in it.

Christmas morning we let the boys get up and look to see what Santa brought them in their stockings. Chase’s favorite thing ended up being one of those squares with all he plastic needles in it so you can put your hand or object on the back and see a design on the front. I don’t know the real name for them. Alex & Aiden liked their Halo guys and the lego Mustangs best.

Dan, Mindy, & Amy all arrived. My breakfast casseroles took twice as long as they said they would to cook so we opened presents first. The boys got alot of cool stuff. Way too much as usual, but they were all very very pleased with everything.

Some of the things the boys got were –

Aiden : Xbox 360, lots of Xbox games, star wars guys, gi joe toys, a new REVERSIBLE DC hoodie, 2 DC shirts, a nerf gun, and more.  His favorite was obviously the Xbox — not much competes with video games when you’re 8.

Chase : Gator Golf, Various Ben 10 toys, Bakugan Balls, trampoline for his room, big exercise ball, some leapfrog toys, Ni Hao Kia Lan lego, Batman Lego for the Wii, DC shirt, GI Stuff, and more. Chase’s favorite was his ben 10 guy, or his Bakugan balls. He was excited about everything though. It was by far his best Christmas experience I think.

Alex : Trio Castle stuff (4 different sets), Star Wars guys, Gi Joe guys, wii video game, dc shirt, electronic drum set, nerf guns, Star Wars lego, color change car set, and lots more. His favorite was the Star Wars lego, Color Change Car set, or the castle stuff. The castle stuff I have to say was pretty darn cool. All 3 boys have been into it!!

As for Neil and I – Part of Neil’s gift was the Xbox 360 with Aiden. He got a charger station for his stuff that needs charged (yay now it has a place other than a heap on my counter), he got games for the 360 from my mom, and a Ipod shuffle. I got the mother of all juicers — and its AWESOME!!! I have wanted one for a long time. My mom got me 2 purses that are way cool too. One is tan leather, with cargoish pockets on the front, and a double braided handles. It nice and big and pretty!! The other is a patent charcoal gray alligator print pattern. ITS FUN!!!

So as you can see we were all very blessed in the gift department and all loved what we got.

After presents and breakfast we played for a while then we all bundled up and played in the snow!! It was a lot of fun getting out there with everyone!! Chase surprised both Neil and I by LOVING the snow!! He was all down in it. It was awesome. The dogs ran all over the park playing. The snow was too dry to make snowmen but we pushed the kids down the hill in laundry baskets. The drifts were crazy.

Overall it was a GREAT Christmas day!!! We had so much fun with family!!!

This is another recipe I get asked for a lot. You can use this icing for basically anything. Just add or subtract liquid to make it the consistency you need it to be.

ICING RECIPE

1 c. Butter or Shortening
2 lbs. Confectioners Sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Milk or Milk Sub

Cream Butter or Shortening, add vanilla, add Conf. Sugar 1/3 a bag at a time.  Add Milk or Milk Sub. a tbls at a time until desired consistency is reached.

If you want pure white frosting use crisco and wilton clear vanilla.

Frosting made with shortening is much more durable and better for piping into designs. Frosting made with butter has a much richer flavor. I often use half butter half crisco, or butter flavored crisco.

You can alter this in all kinds of ways – here are a few ideas :
+You can use cream cheese instead of butter or crisco for a cream cheese icing.
++ You can use orange juice instead of milk and add some orange zest for icing with an creamy orange flavor
+++ Add cocoa and extra milk for a chocolate icing
++++ For berry flavored icing, use berry juice instead of milk. Fresh juiced will be fresher and stronger.

I have so many friends ask me for my mother’s cut out cookies when I make them I am going to go ahead and post the recipe. These are awesome cookies that hold their shape even when using cookie cutters that are very detailed, but they stay soft days after baking. These are a favorite from my childhood. You can decorate them with sprinkles before they are baked, or paint them with a colored egg wash. You can ice them with frosting after if you like that sort of thing. :0) Maybe one of these days I will play with converting them to a GFCF recipe.

CUT-OUT COOKIES
Stephanie McComb

3 c. All-Purpose Flour
1 c. Sugar
1 1/2 tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 tsp. Salt
1 c. Softened Butter
1 Egg, slightly beaten
2 tbls. Half & Half or Heavy Whipping Cream
1 1/2 tsp. Vanilla Extract

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl.
Add butter and cut in with a mixer or pastry blender.
Add eggs, cream, and vanilla. Blend thoroughly. You may have to finish mixing by hand to get all the dry ingredients combined. Form into 3 balls.
Chill if desired.

Roll the dough 1 ball at a time. Roll to 1/8″ thickness on a floured surface. Cut out with cookie cutter dipped in flour first.

Bake 5-8 minutes. The edges will just begin to be golden.

So I adapted a recipe to be gfcf. It’s A-MAZ-ING!! Chase even LOVES them. That is saying something. I am posting the original along with the adaptations. Enjoy! Oh the flour blend recipe is at the bottom.

So lets play a little catch-up for a minute.

We had a great Thanksgiving. Wednesday we celebrated with our friends in Life Group and the army of kids we all have between us. It was GREAT. I am always astonished by how well the kids all get along and play together. They are a mishmash of ages but they do great.

Thursday we had Neil’s family over. Neil’s mom had to work, so we she wasn’t able to join us. However Neil’s cousin and his wife came in from Georgia to visit. I made a huge amount of food for everyone. I was very pleased with myself for making the boys gfcf stuffing, dinner rolls, & pumpkin cornbread they all loved. Even Chase LOVED the stuffing. He ate a HUGE helping of it, and ate it for every meal for the rest of the weekend. Haha! Everything really turned out good, the broccoli was way over cooked and the gravy kind of congealed into a solid. However it still tasted really good. LOL! My favorite new side was the jello dish I made. It was soooo yummy. It was raspberry jello mixed with pineapple juice, crushed pineapple, something else, and diced apples. I used honeycrisp apples and it was SO SO YUMMY!! Anyway the food was good, and we had a GREAT time with Neil’s family just hanging out and spending the day together.

Friday we got up a little late and and went to a few stores. We took advantage of a few sales and picked up a few Christmas gifts. It was a nice morning. That evening Neil’s cousin went to a poker game with him. His wife Ally came over and hung out with me. We just hung out and talked. It was nice getting to know her a little more!

Saturday evening we hung out at Neil’s parents house and had dinner with them. We got Johnnies Charcoal Grill. So yummy. Their hamburgers and french fries are gfcf. We had a nice visit.

Not too much has been going on since then. Just normal life with some added Christmas activities. The boys are very excited about Christmas. Chase especially. He is sooooooo pumped over Christmas. He drug us to the mall last week and insisted we see Santa so he could tell him what he wanted. It’s cute. He’s excited about giving presents as much as he is about getting them. LOVE IT!!

This past weekend we made Christmas cookies and went to look at lights. We also made snowflakes and decorated the windows with them. I love the holidays, so much fun!

So today was Monday, the boys had school and then we went out and ran some errands this evening and went out to dinner. Chase asked for Pei Wei. We went and looked at paint samples for our room. Graysen decided to start peeling my wallpaper off my walls in the bedroom when she should have been napping. She ripped off too much to even think of repairing it. We were never thrilled about the wallpaper and it’s been 6 years so we are just going to texture and paint the walls of the holiday break. Neil said we could do the master bathroom at the same time as well. We have already stripped some of the wallpaper in the bathroom. I will probably work on doing more this weekend in the bathroom and in our room so when the break comes we will be ready to texture and paint immediately. Super excited about it. I love decorating. Once we have done the bathroom we will have done the whole house really. Well not the entry but it now goes with the living room so there’s no point in messing with it. Aaaanyway…. we went and got paint samples for that tonight. Super excited.

The other news we have…. AMY WILL BE HOME SATURDAY!!!! She has been in Africa for 6 months!!! We have missed her so much!!! We are excited and the boys are SUPER excited!!! We are going to be at the airport to greet her when she gets here!!! YAY!!! It’s been a long 6 months but also fast. Weird how that works.

Well the little boys are in bed. Neil and I are going to play Parcheesi with Aiden so I better sign off!! Hope everyone is having a fun holiday season. I plan to post my cookie recipe tomorrow so make sure to check back…