Glad it's done...

No, not Thanksgiving.  It wasn't too bad with just our family. It was a very relaxing day!  And for that matter this whole little break has been very relaxing. 
The big girl left Friday to go out of town with a friend's family so it has been quieter than usual.
The little one and I have done quite a bit of Christmas shopping and we got all of the Christmas decorations up.

Last year, we went to Dallas for Christmas so I didn't put up much, just one little tree...  This year I am having a Christmas party for our dept. so I needed to decorate.
I realized after getting it all done that it looks like a Christmas store in here!  In our old house, we had a big  formal area.  Here, all of our living spaces are right together....
Here are a few of my favorites...

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snowman tree in my bedroom

Notice the very nice natavity?  Resting on a scrap of burlap... looks a bit like hay don't you think?

Mike gave the pieces of the natavity but I haven't broken down and bought the creche... it costs much  more than the actual stable that Jesus was birthed in...

Notice the dog in the back ground wearing her Christmas PJ's?  Well, it took two very brave girls to get them on her and she may have to wear them forever since she turns very mean when you try to remove them..

Dining room, still need to clean off the table from the remains of the decorations...

Do you see these sweet little kissing children?  We tried to get a sweet kissing picture every year.  The last few years it hasn't been as easy.  How come they don't stay that little???

 

So, we're at the end of the weekend.  It has been great except for today,

at the last possible minute, I am finishing sewing the Choir Dresses I was signed up for... I usually don't wait till the last min. on things, but this job is different.  I have to make 7 (or 14 if no other mom wants to help) and they are easy, easy to sew, but they are a red crushed velvet and they shed and make me sneeze!  One more to go, unless she didn't find anyone to do the others and tells me at the very last minute.  We'll see...

How was your weekend?

Thanks-giving

Here we are in a whole different town from any family. 

Family that I am thankful for. 

I have been very unsettled about this whole holiday season.  

I have been very mad that because of Mike's work we can't go to family for the holidays.

I have been sad that no one was coming here for Thanksgiving and if they come at Christmas it will be after. 

My kids have been very unsettled by this.  We aren't used to being without family on the holidays.

But, here we are, getting used to it. 

I guess it won't be too bad, but there are few things that just won't be the same.  Things we won't do without others here. 

But being thankful isn't one of the things I will skip.  I know I am blessed and I am very thankful.

 1Thessalonians 5:18

in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

Almost Every Thursday

Almost every Thursday my girls talk me into eating at Pei Wei. They have a weird dance schedule that night and it's easiest to eat out.  This week we went to a Kanakuk movie night on Tuesday and needed dinner on the way and guess what they wanted...

We all had forturns that related to needing more food...

a crab wonton a day keeps the dr away....

blah, blah, blah and start with a spring roll...

Every time we eat there we discuss how we wish Jennifer was with us since she loves it too, so Katie opened a forturn cookie for her...

Her forturn was what I pray for her every single day

so, Jennifer, you probably should do something with the lucky numbers too.

Cinnamon Rolls

Next weekend at Mike's family get together, it is a Thanksgiving brunch.  I have been looking for a reason to try Pioneer Woman's recipe for cinnamon rolls...

The sisters taking turns and working well together went out the window on this project.  Kellie wanted to do it all without Katie even in the room...it was a load of fun... But the good news, even the bickering of the sisters couldn't mess up the wonderfulness of these...

It looks like someone wiped their hands while helping me...

                                                 

Ummmm, butter....

It makes a ton

They were everything I thought they would be.

I sent a pan to our sweet neighbors to see what they thought... he just texted me letting me know that if I forgot to take the rest of them with us to let him know, he would come get them and something about he may have eaten the whole pan I sent over.

The final product...They taste as good as they look!

This is the pan the neighbor may or maynot have eaten all of...

Cinnamon Rolls

adapted from Pioneer Woman

Ingredients

1 quart Whole Milk
1 cup Vegetable Oil
1 cup Sugar

2 packages Active Dry Yeast
8 cups (Plus 1 Cup Extra, Separated) All-purpose Flour
1 teaspoon (heaping) Baking Powder
1 teaspoon (scant) Baking Soda
1 Tablespoon (heaping) Salt

2 cups (to 4 Cups) Melted Butter (I used two cups)
2 cups Sugar (I used a comb. of brown sugar and white sugar)
Generous Sprinkling Of Cinnamon

_____

MAPLE FROSTING:
1 bag Powdered Sugar
2 teaspoons Maple Flavoring
½ cups Milk
¼ cups Melted Butter
¼ cups Brewed Coffee
⅛ teaspoons Salt
(I omitted the coffee and butter and still turned out great.)
Preparation Instructions

Mix the milk, vegetable oil and sugar in a pan. “Scald” the mixture (heat until just before the boiling point). Turn off heat and leave to cool 45 minutes to 1 hour. When the mixture is lukewarm to warm, but NOT hot, sprinkle in both packages of Active Dry Yeast. Let this sit for a minute. Then add 8 cups of all-purpose flour. Stir mixture together. Cover and let rise for at least an hour.

After rising for at least an hour, add 1 more cup of flour, the baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir mixture together. (At this point, you could cover the dough and put it in the fridge until you need it – overnight or even a day or two, if necessary. Just keep your eye on it and if it starts to overflow out of the pan, just punch it down).

When ready to prepare rolls: Sprinkle rolling surface generously with flour. Take half the dough and form a rough rectangle. Then roll the dough thin, maintaining a general rectangular shape. Drizzle 1 ½ to 2 cups melted butter over the dough. Now sprinkle 1 cup of sugar over the butter followed by a generous sprinkling of cinnamon.

Now, starting at the opposite end, begin rolling the dough in a neat line toward you. Keep the roll relatively tight as you go. Next, pinch the seam of the roll to seal it.

Spread 1 tablespoon of melted butter in a seven inch round foil cake or pie pan. Then begin cutting the rolls approximately ¾ to 1 inch thick and laying them in the buttered pans.

Repeat this process with the other half of the dough. Let the rolls rise for 20 to 30 minutes, then bake at 375 degrees until light golden brown, about 15 to 18 minutes.

For the frosting, mix together all ingredients listed and stir well until smooth. It should be thick but pourable. Taste and adjust as needed. Generously drizzle over the warm rolls. Go crazy and don’t skimp on the frosting.

I have two big pans in the freezer to bake the morning of the brunch, a pan to bake to take to work in the morning, and 3 small pans in the freezer...
Here is what I learned... these take a while with all the differnt steps.  They are worth it.  Maple extract stains.  My granit is great for rolling things out on but is too good at hiding spots, you can't tell if you have it all cleaned up...Did I mention these are worth the trouble!

The magic of the Apple Corer Peeler Slicer

I decied we needed to make apple butter this weekend.  I need a hostess gift to take to Mike's aunt's house next weekend...  I've embroidered a crazy turkey on a tea towel and wanted a jar of apple butter to tie it around.

Not to long ago I bought an apple peeler corer thing and pulled it out today for the first time.

My kids couldn't believe the magic of it.  It brought them together. It caused them to take turns.  They thought it was so much fun!

Doesn't she look like she's waiting patiently?

 Katie said "who ever thougth of this was really smart... I'll bet you'll see these on t.v. soon" guess she thought it was a brand new thing that no one else has ever seen! 

They peeled about 8 lb of apples and didn't fight at all. It was amazing.  Then they helped clean up...  I would have invested in the apple peeler much sooner if I had known!

Apple Butter

Apples - enough to fill your slow cooker

1/2 cup vineger

3 C white sugar

1 C brown sugar

3 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cloves

Peel, core and slice enough apples to fill a 4-quart slow cooker or crock pot so full that the lid will not go down over it.

Add vinegar; cook on low for 18 hours.
Add white sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon and cloves.
Mix all together and cook 4 more hours. If mash or blend to get consistancy you prefer
Seal in jars.

I've been told we'll all survive this

Teenage years, that's what I've heard.  More than one person has told me we will all make it out alive. 
I've actually seen it happen.  Look at my neice Jennifer.  I remeber her being a bit of a moody teen and she turned out great....but when you're in the battle it doesn't feel like it will end well.
It's new territory and I'm really not enjoying it yet.  As a matter of fact, I'm pretty much hating it! 

Katie was 13 in April...somewhere over the summer some switch in her flipped.  Just like WHAM different kid, at least part of the time.
One minute she is fighting with her sister over who gets to sit by me and the next min. she is so bristly I don't want her to sit by me!  Moody is an understatement most of the time. 

I am learning how to deal with these drastic mood changes and smart responces she is throwing at me.  Jennifer made a good point last night. She commented that she has us, who are both a little sarsastic and can be big ole smarty pants to learn from and she may not know when the smarty pants answer is over the line...That's one theory...


I've learned loosing my temper with her gets me no where.  I'm very much a talk about it and settle things type of person.  I've figured out that she is like her dad, she has to stomp off, mull things over and then talk about it or apologize on her time...(that really bugs me but that's ok)  I'm having to learn to wait.

I'm learning that we have very differnt personalities. 

I'm learning that even though she is moody and bristly she is still just a little girl under it all.  I love when I'm reminded that she is really a great kid.

I know that she loves God. 

I know that she is prayed for.

I know that she cares about others.

I know that we all went through it.  I remember how hard it was!

I don't know how my mother didn't kill me.

I don't know what I'm going to do in a couple of years - if they fight now, imagine what it could be like when they are both moody teenager!

I do know I'll love them, moody and all.

It's going around...

No, not the flu...it's the illness and possible death resulting from math.  It is one of the rarely talked about things going around this time of year... Our house is under constant stress from Algebra.  Fifth grade math hasn't been an issue lately but 8th grade ALGEBA, it's killing us....
And now, it's effecting other family members, Jennifer is suffering from it to.  It's an epidemic I tell you!

Mike is out of town and I can't tell you how relieved I was when Katie asked for homework help tonight, that it wasn't math related! That surely would have been the end of me.

The other one decided to give it a try

Katie decided she didn't like Kellie cooking with me all time and wanted to make something herself.  The funniest part is this made Kellie furious when she wasn't allowed to help.
Katie wanted to make soft pretzels.  Pretty easy to make, even though there were a few steps.

Soft Pretzels

1 cup water, plus

2 tablespoons water (at 70 to 80 degrees)
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

2 quarts water
1/2 cup baking soda
1 egg
kosher salt

Add yeast to 2 tbsp warm water and let sit till foamy.  Place flour, sugar, 1 cup water and yeast in water in mixing bowl and mix.  Kneed for 5-10 min by hand or with dough hook of mixer. 
Place dough on lightly floured surface and seperate into 8 portions for large pretzels or more for smaller pretzels.  Shape into ropes and shape like pretzel. 
In a large sauce pan bring water and baking soda to a boil.  Drop pretzels two at a time into boiling water for  10 -15 sec. Remove with slotted spoon and place on greased baking sheet.  Beat egg and brush top of pretzels with egg.  sprinkle with salt.  Bake 8 - 10 min till golden brown.

What do you mean that was thrity years ago?

Today, I looked at CNN.com while at work.  The headline was about the Iran Hostage Crisis being 30 years ago.  I added the link for you people that are still young and don't know about it...
It can't be that many years.  It wasn't that long ago.  That would make me....yep, I guess thats right, it was 3o years ago.  Darn it.
Thirty years ago, minus a few weeks I was still living in Iran with my parents.  My dads job was classified so I don't know exactly know what he did, if he told us he would have had to kill us.
He did work on a Iranian military base which turned out to not be a safe place.  Our landlord was an Iranian general, which also turned our home into an unsafe place to be...The American school was closed because of all the danger.  The city was under martial law so you could only go out at certain hours.  They turned off the elec in the city at night.  I really don't know why the electricty was turned off.  But I do know that my mother and I were not cut out for the days before electricity... you know, there is just so much you can do in a foreign land with no electricty.  You can olny play monopoly so many times, and we were told to limit the candle light, etc or people would shoot into your home...  Thank God it wasn't summer, I would have asked someone to shoot me!
Being a young teen didn't really see how bad this situation was.  My mother did.  She wanted to leave.  The airport was closed and only a very few flights were allowed in or out.  We got a call late one night that there was a flight out if we could be ready by morning... The trip to the airport is something I'll never forget.  It certainly made me aware of the danger we were in.  There were tanks and soldiers everywhere, cars and buildings smoldering from being burned.  It was terrible.  My mother and I left with only a few dollars of american money and took off on a flight that did not have a destination as no other countries were letting flights from Iran land...We eventually got home, my dad came about a week before the hostages were taken. 
I didn't set out to tell the whole story but there it is.  And it was thrity years ago.  Which makes me old.
The End.

At least one of them wants to cook

Today was Monday.  Really Monday.  It was a very long Monday too.

I think the time change set me up for a bad Monday.  I just couldn't go to sleep.  Benadry didn't help.  I thougth about EVERYTHING.  If I know you, I thought about you last night.  I wondered what you were up to, how you were, why you aren't here visiting me...I planned a Christmas party in my head, worried about many things and then prayed for everyone I know.  So, I guess it wasn't totally a bad thing.

So, this afternoon when I picked up two hungry girls, we discussed what we would have for dinner, I was thrilled when Kellie asked "can I cook dinner all by myself?"  and I answered, of course you can my favorite child!

I had been planning on making Pioneer Woman's Chicken Parmigiana so decided it would be a good thing for Kellie to try.

 It turned out soooo good!

You'll want to have someone make this for you very soon while you sit on the bar stool sipping a nice beverage and giving instructions. It was easy and other than cutting up the chicken she did  it all!

When I got out the wine and had told her to add it.  She looked a little upset.   I had to explain that if we cooked the wine she could eat the sauce.

Oh, how I loved someone cooking for me and it was great!  Turned out she didn't get very excited when it was time to clean up...