Good Times

Today we had some great company.  This is Libby, Kerri and Julie.  My good friends from high school.  I see Libby and Julie a bunch, but I can't remember how long it's been since I've seen Kerri!  Maybe 6 or 7 years!?!  We were very close friends especially our Senior year of high school.  We had a lot of the same classes together, and then after h.s. we both went two semesters to VolState and were carpool buddies.  I still remember her purple Prelude!  Loved that car :)

Anyway, Kerri is now an army wife so her and her husband and kids move around bunches and she always has tons of family that want to see her when she's in town.  I'm just glad it all worked out and we were able to visit with each other today and let OUR kids play together!

This is little Zane - Julie's son.  Beautiful hair and looong eyelashes!

This is Kerri's newest addition - Aliza.  She'll be very well protected by her two older brothers :)

These are the rest of the kids having lunch, minus baby Philip who was napping.

It was so good to catch up today and it made me realize I should make more of an effort with ALL of my friends to get together more often - with and without kids. 

Christmas 20Ten

What a wonderful Christmas, but aren't they all?  I adore the holidays and I was very excited that we hosted ALL of the festivities this year.  It was just a *little* stressful planning and delegating, but much less than if we would have  packed, unloaded and repacked to go visiting.

 This is me on Christmas Eve.  I thought I had an overwhelmed look on my face.  A little forced smile if you will.  I had a horribly busy night at work just before the madness began.  Not much sleep for me but I pushed through!

We exchanged gifts with my family on Christmas Eve.  Thankfully my mom didn't get them anything humongous this year.  The past few years she has (think Kota, powerwheels, etc), but it was the year of the packing peanuts!  You can only imagine what the boys did with those.  It looked like a snowstorm in the living room!

I must've been a very good girl this year!  Here's me with my new Coach bag!!!  Yipee!  I also got a Pandora bracelet & charms, Brighton's jewelry, Loft and Francesca's gift cards, new dishes from Pier 1 and a cookbook.

Christmas Morning!!!

The aftermath!

 happy, but sleepy :)

All of the gifts are gone now, and I think Bella is the only one happy about it!

The best sugar cookies you'll ever make!

I found this recipe last Christmas and made the best homemade sugar cookies I've ever had.  It's a very time consuming recipe and a bit of a pain, but it's Christmas after all.  Gotta have the cookies.

Here are the tips on her blog, and I couldn't agree more.  Follow these and you'll be set.

1. Do not overbake. When the cookies start lightly browning around the edges, remove from the oven and transfer to a cooling rack immediately to keep them from baking any more.
2. CHILL YOUR DOUGH!!!! This is probably the most important thing to remember so that your cookie holds it's shape. It will also keep you from having to use too much flour while rolling the dough out, leaving you with a "too-much-flour" taste in your mouth. I usually make my dough the day before I need it and let it chill overnight.

1 cup butter (2 sticks)
1 cup vegetable shortening (Crisco)
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp salt
3 Tbsp milk
6 cups all-purpose flour

• Cream the butter and shortening in a mixing bowl until smooth.

Add the sugar and cream until fluffy.

• Add one egg at a time, beating between each addition.
• Add the baking powder, extract, salt and milk all at once. Mix well.
• Add the flour, one cup at a time.

• Chill overnight.
• When rolling out your dough, do not roll too thinly. Use as little flour as possible when rolling.
• Do not overcrowd your cookie sheet. Give these cookies room to expand a little without fear of bumping into a neighbor.
• Preheat your oven to 375*. Make sure it's been heated through (about 30 minutes).
• Make sure you rotate your cookie sheets when they're in the oven. Swap to a different shelf so you get even baking. I've even tried baking these on convection and have had uneven baking, so keep a watchful eye on these babies.
• Cookies will be done baking between 7-10 minutes. Pull from the oven just when the edge start looking slightly brown. Don't be afraid if they look too blond. That means they'll be perfectly soft!
• Allow to cool completely on a cooling rack. Can be held in an air-tight container for 3-4 days (unfrosted), and up to 3 months in the freezer.
• Frost. I use a buttercream frosting vs. royal icing. Use whichever you prefer.

Buttercream frosting

1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup butter (1 stick), softened
6 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1 tsp lemon extract
1 tsp butter extract
4-5 Tbsp half and half or cream (cream is preferred)

Cream butter and shortening until smooth. Add the extracts, mix. Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time, alternating with cream until it pulls together. If the frosting is too thick, add more cream. Tint with coloring paste and use a spatula or piping bag to decorate your cookies.

I had heard that you don't need to use any flour if you roll out your dough between two sheets of parchment paper.  It did work, but we would've been there all night.  I like to roll it all out on the counter and start cutting it out!

Shamefully, I didn't get any pictures of the finished product.  I guess that's what happens when baking meets wine.  I am pretty sure my sister took a few with her phone, so if I get those from her I'll add them.  They turned out so cute!

Makin' bacon!

So, this is totally not a "cooking" blog, but I feel like I've been doing SO much cooking lately that I might as well share some recipes!

My boys LOVE bacon.  I hate cooking bacon.  That was a problem.  It stinks up the kitchen, makes a greasy mess on the stove and the scent of bacon lingers in my hair all day.  I gave up pan frying bacon a long time ago.  We went the microwave route for awhile, but it just didn't cook up right.  Then, one day on the Rachael Ray show, she did a segment on "baking" bacon.  You put it on a broiler rack (pan below, duh) and bake almost 45 minutes.  Well, we tried it on the weekend.  It was pretty darn good, but who has that much time in the mornings before school?  Not to mention the mess it made on the pan.

Then I got out my trusty Pampered Chef bar pan, which I use for everything...

I found this awesome good nitrate free bacon

Crank the oven anywhere from 375-400 (I usually go low and slow).  At 375 my bacon was perfect after 20 minutes.

I removed it from the pan right after taking it out of the oven and placed it on some paper towels to drain the grease, plus...it will continue to cook on the stone even after it's out of the oven.

Give it a try~

I love it!

I think I must have the *best* uncle a girl could ask for!  I am always up for doing some home improvements, so I thought to see if my uncle would be interested in tiling my backsplash.  As you can tell from the link, this is not his day job, but rather what he does as a hobby.  He's very good at it too!  We went with travertine tile for the backsplash, and believe it or not we coordinated it all via our smartphones!  We texted pictures back and forth (me at Lowe's, while he was at a tile outlet in Georgia) and luckily it worked out to match everything perfectly!  I couldn't have asked for a better job!

As you can see in the bottom picture, it was his creative idea to run the tile down to the baseboard.  I had never seen it done that way and never even thought about that as an option.  I'm smitten with my new tile!  Oh, and the best part....it was FREE!  His Christmas gift to our family.  <----My jaw is still on the floor about that!

Photo HEAVY

Just wanted to share some of the crafty things I've been making the past month or two.

 Wine gift bags with paper flowers.

 Christmas Countdown blocks.  These have been the best EVER!  Now that we have a table saw I can really crank these out.

 "Believe" banner - found here

Frosted glass blocks.  I really enjoyed making these as teacher's gifts.  It took a little playing with technique, but I am very happy with how these turned out.

Tile coasters (for my mom).  She needed some for year round usage, and now that it's so close to Christmas (just my luck) I found an adorable tutorial to make some Christmas ones.  There's always next year!

Lastly, I want to add some ornaments to my book wreath to make it a little more festive!

How about a little hug?

These "pretzel hugs" may be the death of me.  They've definitely been my diet downfall this Christmas season.  First of all, they are SUPER easy to make, and secondly...well, they're just delish!  I love sweet + salty and this hits it.  Experiment with all the different types of candies if you want.  It's a great way to use up what you may have laying around.  My favorite was the candy cane Hershey Kisses!  I also used plain kisses and Andes mints.  If you have a chance, MAKE THESE.  You won't be let down (but the scale won't go down either, so beware).



Here's the recipe:

Ingredients Directions

1 pound (1 bag) of mini round pretzels - 14 ounces (1 bag) of Hershey's Kisses or Hugs - 17 3/5 ounces (1 bag) of M&M candies Preheat oven to 200°. Line a cookie sheet with parchment or waxed paper. Place as many pretzels on the cookie sheet as will fit. Top each with a Hershey's Kiss or Hug. The Hugs chocolates melt faster than Kisses. Place in oven and remove when candy begins to soften just enough to press an M&M candy or decoration into softened candy. Top each with a holiday M&M or decorative candy of choice. Allow to cool completely and then place in freezer for 15 minutes to firm up chocolate. Remove from freezer, place pretzel candies in airtight container and store in freezer until ready to use. *Any small shaped pretzel can be used, such as square, waffle-shaped or round. *Serve for any holiday or event by changing the color of the M&M candies to colors consistent with the celebration. I didn't need to store my hugs in the freezer.  Once they were set, I just stored them in a decorative tin with all the other goodies.  They didn't last long!

It's not easy being Santa!

This is Bryce's "WOW" item for Christmas this year.  The kid is a Star Wars FREAK, and he has been wishing for this since he first spotted it in a toy catalog before Thanksgiving.  I really don't know how I feel about Legos.  We've s-l-o-w-l-y introduced them into our house with the small sets, and I am still finding little pieces scattered here and there.  It makes me crazy, not for stepping on them or getting them sucked up in the vacuum, but because I am a person who believes in "everything has a place, so put everything in its place".  I can only imagine how I will feel when he opens all 500+ pieces of this.

So, not only is he getting this Lego set, we also got him the fireboat, airplane and another Star Wars ship.  Annnnd my mom had to top all of that by getting him the Lego AT-AT walker.  Yep, all 1,137 pieces of it.  That must make our grand total of Lego pieces up in the millions by now!  

Chris and I have been tossing around the idea of how to store all these gagillion pieces.  He's from the school of "toss them all into a bucket", and I'm opposed.  I would rather keep all the sets separate.  We're open to suggestions on storage ideas, so if you see any pass them my way!