Our Very Busy Christmas

All the hoopla and excitement, and now it's over. We stayed busy for 2 weeks straight - something going on every single night. It took forever to copy all 400-something pictures on my computer. Yeah...you read it right....over 400 Christmas pictures!!! Am I insane or what? So, instead of posting 400 pictures, here are 23. Hope you had a great Christmas!

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

In the past few posts, I've shown you my poor attempts at baking Christmas goodies. But behold, I bring you good news of great joy! I have a found a recipe that I have tried and conquered! Not only did they turn out great, they tasted great too - especially with a glass of milk!

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

3/4 cup butter, melted 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 1 cup sugar 2 large eggs 2 tsp vanilla extract 2 cups all purpose flour 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 1 6-ounce bag semisweet chocolate chips (or 1/2 of the regular sized bag) 3/4 cup powdered sugar 1. In a mixing bowl, mix the melted butter, cocoa pweder, and sugar. 2. Beat in the eggs and vanilla extract. 3. In a separate mixing bowl, stir the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. 4. Slowly mix in the wet ingredients. Then stir in the chocolate chips. 5. Refrigerate for 2 hours - or overnight. 6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 7. Form dough into 1-inch balls and roll in powdered sugar. 8. Bake on an ungreased baking sheet for 12 minutes. *Makes about 20-25 cookies

And to leave you with another one of my child's antics...

It wasn't just one finger picking - it was a double picking. I couldn't stop laughing. (I guess my laughing isn't going to help matters when he starts doing it all the time.)

Birthday Shout Out and Advent

Some old man I know got even older last week!

Happy birthday, Dad. I love you.

So, doing my advent activities isn't as easy as I had planned in my head. I sat down one day and strategically placed activities on certain dates to try to keep them in the flow of our normal lives. But I'm just not doing good at all.

As of tonight, we've only completed 4 activities:

1. We were supposed to read the legend of the candy cane, but the library was out; so instead, we read about Mary's baby.

2. We cooked dinner for our grandparents. Menu - chicken casserole, green beans, and sweet potatoes

3. We had red and green pancakes for breakfast.

4. We made Christmas goodies to share with others.

reading about Mary's baby

red and green pancakes for breakfast

Jason rolling out cookie dough to make candy cane cookies our cookies actually came out right this time!

and they taste great too!