Friday, December 31, 2010

Our Gingerbread House

This was a really fun project!
I started putting the house together with Royal Icing, and my side and back fell apart.  River says "Mom, you're not very good at building things...huh?"  and then a bit later when it wasn't coming together..."Mom, I'm gonna go pray to Heavenly Father to help you...Nephi prayed when he didn't know how to build a boat, and God showed him how...I'm gonna pray that He'll show you how to make a house!"  A minute later I peaked around the corner to see her kneeling fervently praying that her Mommy will figure out this house!  **Gasp** "Mom!  It worked!"  The house is GORGEOUS!

 Silver:  "Sticky!"
 Can I please eat just one?
I was really impressed, I told them not to eat the candies, and very few were eaten :)

VIDEO:  Silver being Silver :)

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Our Christmas Tree

I love River's Expressions in these:




We found a fun tree this year with 2 trunks.
Our ornaments have had a rough year with Silver taking them off....
Most of the ornaments are on the top couple of branches so Silver can't reach them :)

Monday, December 27, 2010

Christmas Candy Making Party


I find that the hardest part of a get-together for me is not the planning or even the cooking, it's the invite!!  Why is it so hard for me to invite people over?  I am ever so grateful when others invite me and our family to things, so I have made it a goal to invite others to our home and to activities.

My friend Lena is great at inviting and planning events.  She planned and put together a Christmas Candy Making Party that we had at our home.

 I envisioned making these goodies to be a lot harder than it actally was - I was thinking of the candy making where the sugar has to be a certain temperature, and if you don't stir it just right, it will be ruined, long hours with less than stellar results.  These recipes were oh so yummy and super, super easy with only a couple of ingredients and only needed to use the microwave.  She got the recipes off of tasteofhome.com.  Click on the following to be taken to the recipe:

Chocolate Peppermint Bark
Microwave Marshmallow Fudge
Holiday Truffles
Toffee Peanut Clusters
White Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffles (this recipe is for bloodshot eyeballs for halloween, but make them beautiful for Christmas)
Oreo Cream Cheese Truffles (again, a "Hosts of Ghosts" halloween recipe, but excellent for Christmas).
Chocolate Peanut Butter Candy
It was fun because at the rate I go I may have gotten to one recipe - this way we made 7 different goodies and all had an assortment of chocolates when we left.  We had over 20 ladies come to our party.  This will definitely be an annual Christmas event!
Great company and lots of chocolate = a fabulous evening!

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Happy Birthday Silver Dawn

Our Silver Turned 2!!
This picture is oh-so-cute! 
My little sweetheart - she really is a lot of fun!

 Making the birthday cake - Silver chose Chocolate cake with Chocolate Frosting!!
 River and Silver's best friend Danika had a birthday the day before Silver's -
We had a combined birthday party. 
 While Silver didn't know quite what to think -
River was more than willing to jump in and show her how it was done.




Tickle-Tickle baby Summer's Toesies! 




Happy Birthday Sweetheart!
You truly are a joy!

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

I Believe

A Truly Amazing Video! 
From the BBC's Planet Earth Series!
http://www.andiesisle.com/creation/magnificent.html

Mosiah 4:9 "Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend."

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Our Special Times Together

We just cherish our painting times together:
 Apple, Pear and Leaf Prints
 Silver's print
River's picture.  Age 4 1/2
Top left:  Pink and purple hearts
Followed by pink bee
Cute Person
And bottom:  person smelling a flower.

Another thing we really enjoy together is music. 
This one is harder to take pictures of, but we enjoy playing musical instruments - our favorite thing lately is our box of instruments.  Sometimes as a special treat we'll have a "musical story" and Dad or Mom will tell a story while the girls pick which instrument goes along with what is happening in the story.   We enjoy dancing to all kinds of music, and singing songs.  We sing a lot of Primary songs as well as silly songs. 
At USU we had a devotional with Jannice Cap Perry - she's composed a lot of the Primary Children's Songs.  It was amazing to me that as college students, we hadn't sung some of these Primary songs in 10+years, but we sang some of them, and could remember the words.  Music is powerful!  Those songs of faith will stay with these little ones, even when they're not little anymore.  Those words and spirit will come to their mind and life when they need it. 
Lots of time spent with music. 
Musical Activities stimulate development in every area of the brain.  Physical development with balance, hearing, vision, sensation, movement and speech articulation.  Language development, cognitive development, social development and emotional development. 
Patterns, Math, Fun, Pure Joy!

Sunday, December 5, 2010

The Absolute Best Most Fabulous Cookie Recipe Ever!!

Hope that Headline got your attention.
Seriously, these are the greatest!!
Here's Silver holding one of our prized cookies.
They are called Lebkuchen - a German Christmas cookie that we made every year and reminds me so much of Christmas time.  We were able to eat these for breakfast Christmas morning.
Lebkuchen means "life cakes".  We used to take cookies to school and put on a puppet show for our classes about the story of Lebkuchen:  A princess grew ill and hadn't eaten in days.  The King grew worried and had a contest (I forget what the prize was, but I'm sure quite a generous gift).  The winner of the contest was a baker who made these healthy cookies made of nuts, fruit, honey, eggs, etc. which the princess ate and whos energy returned her to health.
These truly are magical cookies for me.
Germans cook using a scale to weigh all of their ingredients.  Thanks Mom for converting everything to  measurements that I can more easily use :)
From my heart to yours:  ENJOY!

1 1/2 cubes (3/4 cups butter)
1 C sugar
1/2 container Citron (after much searching through the store - this is found on the baking isle.  These are the candied fruits similar to the ones in Fruit cake, but trust me, these are nothing like fruit cake).
Candied lemon zest or/and orange zest.  Either candied or made fresh.  I left this step out and they still turned out amazing.
1/2 cup of nuts (either 1/4 cup almonds and 1/4 cup hazelnuts, or 1/2 cup of either one).  I enjoy almonds.
Put your citron, zest, sugar and nuts in the blender until you have a fine mix.
1 tsp vanilla
2/3 C honey
2 eggs (You can either put in 2 whole eggs or 1 whole egg and one egg yolk, saving the egg white to frost the cookies with - the egg yolk gives the frosting a shine.
3 3/4 C flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp spices:  mix the following together and only use 1 tsp of the following mix:
1/4 tsp ground anise
1/2 tsp cardamon (this smells like Christmas trees :)
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp ginger
Depending on how the dough is, if it is too dry add 2-3 Tbsp milk.  Keep in mind that the less flour you put in these, the softer the cookies will be.
Put your dough in the fridge for a couple of hours.
Again, when rolling and cutting out your cookies, use the least amount of flour that you can get away with.
I find that when I cut out the cookies - if I cut them out rather thick, they turn out better.
Cook at 350 for 12-15 minutes until golden brown.
Frosting:  This Makes these cookies!
3 Tbsp lemon juice
1 egg white
powdered sugar until thick. 
(I personally use 2 eggs in the recipe and skip the egg white in the frosting).
I also find that I use quite a bit more frosting than this, so be pretty generous with the lemon juice and then add powdered sugar till spreadable.
Use a pastry brush to brush the frosting on the cookies.
Now, because these cookies have honey in them, they are rather hard.  Put them in the freezer overnight and then let them thaw or put them in a tupperware with an apple to soften them up.  They are soft and oh, so delicious.  Oh, one other note:  I have found that Lebkuchen is an acquired taste.  Some people that I have shared this with have not cared for them, but as for me and my house, we think these are fabulous!!
So I thought there would be plenty of picture taking times with these great cookies because we made so many of them.  But quick as a wink (after eating most of them myself) there was just this one little lone star left.  Quick!  Grab a picture before Mom eats it!!  I had a couple of attempts at taking the picture myself - I could only seem to get at most 3 things in  the picture:  Cookie, Silver and Mom, Cookie River and Silver, or just the girls without the cookie.  Time to call Daddy to take the pic for us: