Watch out Chef Duff

Mom came over last week with one of those pre-made gingerbread kits. Even the icing was easy to make - all you had to do was add water.

We started at the top of the house where Garrett insisted on making a pattern with the gum drops.

Grandma Silly

(my mom)

A pastry chef in the making??
Meagan has a try with the icing. She realized that it isn't as easy as it looks!

Brotherly and Sisterly Love

Please ignore all of the junk on the desk behind the kids!

Our finished gingerbread house
We copied this wreath from the picture on the box - not exactly the same - but close enough!
Thanks Grandma Silly!

We had lots of fun!

Christmas Day

Christmas Day was also really good at our house.

Meagan woke us up at 6:59. "Mom, it's seven! Can we please get up now??" (She was under strict orders to wake us up before she went into the living room to see what Santa left her. A few years ago she woke up, took all of her stuff to her room, and was getting toys out of their boxes before we woke up!)

Garrett was still asleep so we left him alone and went with Meagan into the living room.

She was thrilled with her gift from Santa. (I would be too for that matter!) She received an iPod Nano and an iTunes gift card. Her stocking was also full of goodies. She got a High School Musical 3 game for her DS, some bangle bracelets, socks, some candy, and lots of other little things.

In his stocking Jimmy got a new equipment bag for kickball, some duplicate line-up sheets for kickball, Reece's Peanut Butter cups, and other odds and ends.

In my stocking I got new socks, the new David Cook CD (which is awesome!), some new pens, an iTunes gift card, some candy, and various items.

Garrett finally woke up around 8:00 or so. Santa left him a silver Nintendo DS and a Mario game. In his stocking he got an M&M racing game for the DS, a cover for the DS, a small lego kit, and lots of other goodies.

I made homemade biscuits and bacon and eggs for breakfast. After we ate Jimmy broke out the Batman Lego game for the Wii that the kids got the night before and I spent a while on the computer figuring out how to download music into the iPods Meagan and I received. Meagan bought Taylor Swift and Jonas Brothers songs with her iTunes gift cards.

We went to Grandma and Pawpaw Blair's for Christmas lunch and enjoyed visiting with family. We also opened our stockings that Santa and Grandma Blair fill for us there.

Elaine came by and visited with us before she went back to Houston last night. (She is very busy with preparations for her show which opens on January 9th.

I also talked to Crystal who is in town for the holiday. We made plans to get together today.

All in all, Christmas was great!

I'll post pictures once I have a chance to download them from my mom's camera.

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas day here at our house.

On Christmas Eve, we went to church for the evening service. Meagan was baptised along with another member of the church. It was a beautiful service and, of course, I cried. My mom and dad attended along with Jimmy's mom and two of his sisters and their families.

After church we went back to our house and opened gifts with Grandma Silly and Grandpa. Garrett received lots of Batman goodies and Meagan was thrilled the money that Grandma and Grandpa gave her. The money is for her to go shopping for clothes.

Mom and Dad gave me my very own mixer! (I guess Mom is tired of me always borrowing hers!) What I am very impressed about with the mixer is that Mom and Dad went to Wal-Mart on Black Friday to buy it. If you know my dad, you know how amazing that is!

Jimmy gave me a beautiful Willow Tree angel "Mother and Daughter." He said he felt it fit the theme of the evening.

After a dinner of assorted snacks/finger foods went went to Grandma and Pawpaw Blair's house. We opened gifts there (I got a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble :) Can't wait to go buy some new books!) Meagan and Garrett got lots of toys and Jimmy got an Astros t-shirt and Miami Dolphins salt and pepper shakers.

All of Jimmy's sisters and their husbands and Jimmy and I do a gift exchange. We call it White Elephant. Everyone draws a number and then you open gifts according to the number you drew. You can also "steal" other gifts that have been opened before yours. I came home with $20 in lottery tickets and Jimmy came home with a serving platter that can be kept warm. Of course, Jimmy and I agreed to trade gifts when we got home :) He won $14 off of the lottery tickets.

We got home really late and tucked our kiddos into bed. Garrett was feeling really miserable. He had sneezed and blown his nose ALL DAY and his eyes were almost swollen shut. Whatever blew in with the latest front REALLY bothered his allergies. Wait until you see the pictures - he looked terrible. He even took a nap during the day on Christmas Eve. When he fell asleep I knew he was feeling bad!

Chocolate Pixies Before and After

Baking update:

I forgot to take a picture of the dough before I rolled it into balls. The dough is really thick and chocolatey. You roll it into balls and then roll the balls in powdered sugar.

After you bake them they look like this. Yes, they are extremely messy. My table is still covered with powdered sugar.

Sorry the pictures aren't straight. I dropped my camera the other day and broke the screen. It still takes pictures (obviously) but you can't see what you are taking a picture of until after you download it to the computer.

I still need to make more gingerbread men at some point today. They are Jimmy's sister Tina's favorite cookie.

This post has nothing to do with Christmas

Jimmy recently coached winter kickball for the first time. He coached with another kickball friend of ours. (Neither one of them had enough girls for a full team so they combined the two teams.) I didn't do much coaching wise this time because I was busy taking Garrett to soccer practice and such.

This league is run by the Boys and Girls club - not the Little Miss Kickball organization. Each girl gets to kick no matter how many are on the team and you can sub players on the field every inning, not just at the 4th quarter. No official score was kept and there were no rules other than three strikes and you are out and three outs in each half of the inning. A total of five teams played in the junior division. All of the teams except one were coaches that we played with in the spring league.

Meagan had fun and even scored a few runs this year. It was very different playing in the winter instead of spring/summer. We actually wore sweats and jackets to the games for the most part! It's also more difficult to practice when it gets dark at 6:00!

These pictures were taken right before the last game of the season.

It's starting to smell like Christmas around here

Last weekend the kids and I made some cookies to take to their teachers at school. We made gingerbread men, chocolate pixies, and forgotten cookies.

I made the dough for the gingerbread men and rolled and cut them out. Once I put them on the pan Garrett placed the eyes and buttons on them.


We gave away (or ate) all of the gingerbread men so I plan on making some more in the next couple of days. Next time I will try to get an "after" picture when they come out of the oven.

The chocolate pixies went so fast I didn't even get a single picture of them! They are these wonderful brownie like cookies that you roll in powdered sugar before you bake them. When you bite into them, powdered sugar falls everywhere. I also made the dough for these cookies and then Meagan rolled the dough into balls and then rolled the balls in the powdered sugar. I did the actual baking.

The forgotten cookies are super easy. They are meringue cookies with chocolate chips folded in. I don't like them but several people at work do so I made them. They are SUPER easy to make (especially if you borrow a big fancy mixer from your mom like I did) and take next to nothing to make. To make 45 cookies you only need 2 egg whites, a 2/3 cup of sugar and one cup of chocolate chips. This year I used the mini morsels since the cookies themselves are pretty small.

I plan to make more cookies today. I LOVE biscotti and have wanted to try to make it for years, but I have just never gotten around to it. I am going to make plain almond biscotti. I love to dunk it in my hot chocolate. Of course, it is going to be 80 degrees here on Christmas so I don't know if I'll be drinking any hot chocolate. Why can't the weather get the message that I want it cold on Christmas Eve and Christmas day, not two days prior??

I'll post later with a baking update!

Holiday Crafts

Mom bought Garrett and Meagan these cute craft kits for Christmas. Garrett's kit contained magnets for the refrigerator. He had a santa, a snowman, and a penguin. He really had a lot of fun gluing them together. He was able to do most it all by himself.

Meagan made ornaments for the tree. She had a snowflake and a wreath. She got to use glitter so she of course had a lot of fun!

Thanks Grandma Silly!