Baking Frenzy Continued

There's no better way to spread some holiday "Joy" (that's what the plate says--ha!) than with Sicilian Christmas Cookies, Cappuccino Truffles, and some really yummy local coffee from an awesome place called The Coffee Club. For these and more holiday recipes, visit my recipe blog, The Unpampered Chef

Dad is totally the fun parent at our house

Mason was so excited that it finally snowed! He could hardly wait to get outside and play in it, which was a drastic change in attitude from this time last year. Alan contributed to the excitement by providing a sledding opportunity at a little park by our house. Not being such a snow-friendly mom, I was grateful for his effort to pick a park with relatively small hills and absolutely no trees for this first tubing trip; Mason is half mine after all, so he's genetically predisposed to run into things when he shouldn't.

After breakfast, we headed outside to shovel the snow. While we were outside, our neighbor across the street and her kids came out to tackle the same chore. She has a plow on their 4-wheeler, so we borrowed her two older children while she plowed the driveway. EmmaLee was a great help with the snowman building (I haven't done it in 20-some-odd years), but even with her help the head was a little small and had some trouble staying on. Carter helped Alan shovel for most of the time, but also took time to teach Mason how to eat snow. EmmaLee had fun initiating a snowball fight with Alan.

Post-shoveling, EmmaLee had to go to school but Carter went to the park with us. Wouldn't you know, even with the new inner tube, Mason's favorite thing was to roll down the hills himself. He just wasn't such a huge fan of having snow on his face, and would periodically stop and ask me or his dad to clean him off. When Mason started asking for a drink, we headed home and Mason got one of his first piggy back rides from Dad; his initial protest of "I don't see any piggies!" was pretty funny, but it only took him a second to figure out what was happening.

The first snow of the year brought back a couple of things for me: first is my favorite thing about winter. We love to throw snowballs for Rio and Samson almost as much as they like to eat them. The catch is they often lose the snowball in the snow and will track back to Alan and stare him down as if they don't believe he really threw it. The second thing is the simple joy involved in a snowstorm when you're a little kid. Mason didn't have to worry about things like extended commute times, driver safety, and how much ibuprofen is required to alleviate an after-shoveling backache. All he had to do was sit back and enjoy being a kid, and it was so fun to be caught up in that for a little while. Also, now every time I ask him to put on his coat, he asks if we're building a snowman. I think he liked that part.

Thanks for letting us borrow your kids, Melissa! You guys are great neighbors and I look forward to many more snowstorms with you guys. It isn't the same as us three ladies tackling as many driveways as our shovels will handle, but it's still fun!

Baking Frenzy

In the past few days, I've been on a roll with baking. I have made banana bread (not pictured), about 6 dozen rolled/cutout sugar cookies, English Toffee Bars (bottom left in top picture), and No-Bake Peanut Butter Bars (top right in top picture). I spent five solid hours baking on Sunday. I have yet to frost most of the sugar cookies (I only did the ones we're giving Alan's brother for his birthday treat) and I still have apple butter to make. Also, notice the picture Mason wanted me to take of him "looking at Paul's cookies." For these recipes and others, check out my recipe blog, The Unpampered Chef. Happy Holidays!

Lost in 8:15

This is both hilarious with the deadpan delivery and a great way to catch up on the first three seasons of Lost if you are a fan.

More Nights of Lights

Heather and I took the kiddos, plus her nephew, to see Zoo Lights last week. As you can tell from the overbearing number of pictures, everywhere we looked was a fantastic creation. I definitely recommend it! It wasn't too cold if we kept moving or paused at the heating spots. We tried deep fried s'mores--it wasn't even on a dare-- and decided they aren't our fave. They cool off too fast and don't have enough graham cracker-y-ness. It was almost like paying $2.00 for a greasy candy bar. Mason wasn't a fan and stuck to the usual mess--a churro. I'm not sure what it is about this boy and cinnamon-sugar, but there is a definite love affair there.

The kids each got a little light up spin toy that may very well be the best $6 I have ever spent. The only problem was when they would let the lights flash in the backseat on the way home, because I totally thought I was being pulled over.

Mason kept wanting to go back and see the monkeys (I maintain it takes one to know one). He was so sweet being upset they were sleeping in the trees. He wanted them to "go down and sleep in their beds."

Overall, Mason swore he had so much fun that he wants to do it again, and that is what counts! Although, I think next year he will be way too big for the stroller and we'll have to find another way to bundle up.

The only place Thanksgiving should meet Christmas

In my opinion, that is. I think Christmas is a post-December 1st sort of thing. Except for some reason this year, we were all over it the day after Thanksgiving. I can totally see that; I'm not the girl who starts Christmas around Halloween time, though, and I never will be.

Anyway, we took Mason to see the holiday lights at Thanksgiving Point on Friday night. He said his favorites were the "red trees". As seems to be the case with children, he liked the parking lot decorations the best out of the whole display! Alan's favorite was a solider lighting a cannon; the cannonball shot in an arch over the roadway and was synced to lights of a small explosion on the other side. I really liked that one, but I think my favorite was the gingerbread man flipping through the archway over the trail. I couldn't capture a very good picture of either of our favorites. And the camera didn't do the red trees much justice, but I tried! (Also, please excuse our car antenna in the picture. If it wasn't there, it would mean I was the driver instead of the passenger, so that's probably a good thing.)

Mason's whole focus of the evening was feeding the "Bambis" so they could "have a popsicle after dinner." He determined that reindeer (we have tried to explain the difference between Bambi and reindeer, but the red nose is the only thing that seems to register, and we have since given up) like brown or yellow popsicles the best. I tried not to think about that too much and I was much relieved when he changed his mind and decided they like blue popsicles instead.

Naturally, Mason was the most interested in trying to climb inside the reindeer's pen. I have a picture of him being stopped by his daddy as he tried to climb over the top, but I was on stroller guard on the other side, so it's really dark. And the picture posted does not accurately show the amount of climbing that was going on...need I say again that he's a monkey?

We had hamburgers and fries (all the better to feed my new, relatively bottomless craving for red meat-- I'm sensing a prescription for iron supplements in my future!) for dinner at a place across the way and then shared a peach cobbler milkshake. I found a chunk of peppermint candy cane in my milkshake. I'm choosing to look at that as a bonus!