Holiday Cookies

Becca put out this great recipe for sugar cookies and I tried it. I had some initial difficulties resulting from the fact that I don't, rather haven't, baked. Like, ever.
So I muddled through 20 minutes of beating together sugar and butter and dough that was way sticky. Today I pulled out the chilled dough and we came up with these:



Dea helped me frost most of them.

I Love Lucy - pre making it funny and adding pictures

I've been invited to the I Love Lucy Club.

Here's the story^:

I had great ambitions of making many delicious confections for the Holidays this year. I've been feeling very festive like that. I remember making English Toffee and Pulled Taffy as a kid. Now that I have a kid, plus some, I thought I'd give it* a try myself.

I had to have a candy thermometer, so on my way home from work one night I stopped by Fred Meyer** and picked one up. Then I needed to get the ingredients. It took a day of shopping and stuff, but I came to work yesterday all sorts of prepared. First on the list on yummy, fattening foods to make was Fudge. I used this recipe which sounded really good. I didn't look very hard and evidently there are much easier ways of making the stuff. For the sake of being gung-ho, I wanted to do it authentic.

So.

I had these two pages of instructions that are not really in order. Starting on page two I added the ingredients mixing them and melting them slowly. I don't know what the crystallization they referred to looks like, but they were very adamant that you don't want it in you fudge. Things were cooking great until the mixture started to boil. I had it in a big pot because I knew that it would grow as it boiled. I didn't realize how much the stuff would grow. The mixture bubbled and rose and rose and bubbled. I had to keep it cooking or I might get crystals! So I did the logical thing as the mass reached the top of the pot. I blew on it.
Nuthing happened.
Rather it kept growing. So I turned down the heat. But just as the flame turned off, the mixture boiled over the top and onto the stove. I had to keep it cooking or it would crystallize and ruin the batch. So I grabbed a bigger pot and put it on another burner. I turned on the flames and realized a second later that it was the wrong burner. The bag of oranges was sitting next to the burner I had turned on. The red mesh bag was casually draped over the side of the fruit basket and on top of the burner. AH! I hastily turned it off and lit the correct burner. Then I poured the remaining mixture of overflowing, bubbly, sticky, chocolate stuff into it. I turned up the heat and got it back to boiling. I couldn't stir it, per the instructions Else I might make it crystallize. When it got to the correct temperature I removed it from the stove. The next step was to beat until creamy. I can't beat it in a Teflon coated pot, so I had to pour it into another container, again. Then I got the mixer out and started beating the sucker. It was HOT and kept flinging bits of 30-seconds-ago-boiling-chocolate-mixture out at me. After the 15th burn I had Dea help me make a shield with paper towels. After the 20th burn I thought to look at the directions again. I was supposed to let it cool.
Oh.
So I let it cool. For Ever. Finally when it was the right temperature I went back at it with the beaters. Twenty minutes later it was still not creamy, Derek and Lori were home and it was time for me to leave. I poured it into a Tupperware and stuck it in the fridge. Today it is still not creamy. I was able to get this picture*** of the stuff. I spelt 'love' with the drizzle from my thickness testing spoon. So now I have some really good fudge ice cream topping.


^It's pretty straight forward, so there are not so many explanations down here. Sniff.
* Making candy, that is.
** I really wanted the $20 fancy schmancy one from William Sonoma. But the $5.99 one at Fred Meyer was closer... and cheaper.
*** It won't upload... sorry.

A new post

I'm not sure what I want to post about^. I know I want to post something. My computer kinda died and I thought I lost my pictures. Yikes! Lucky Scott showed me how to find them again^^.

^ That's a lie. I know many many things I'd like to post about. I just can't pick.
Jaedyn had 6 teeth. She had her first candy cane. Everyone called her a boy at our ward Christmas Party. The mohawk* didn't help. Nor did her missing earrings.
Things are moved to storage. It is bliss.
I had a birthday. It was not so exciting. But I did get one birthday present. From my mom. It's a sewing machine. I made a hedgehog as my first project. I'm still making it. I made a wallet for the second project (later Alicia gave me some fabric, thanks!).
We made a gingerbread house. Super soft, nasty light butter is the way to go for the recipe I had. I tried again with real butter and it turned out rather nasty.
My hands are getting scaly. The weather up here does weird things to my flesh.
We have been watching Bones. It's interesting.
We are going to Houston for New Years and my mom's wedding! WOOHOO!!!

*She really has a mowhawk. When we take her hair down from it's pony spike...it's this fantastic mowhawk that lasts for days.

^^ Now I need to send those pictures. Thank goodness for my husband who saves me from computers.

Thanksgiving

We had a fun Thanksgiving this year. It was very different. No Football. No Turkey Bowl. No parades. It was surreal and weird.
We did sleep in. Even Jaedyn slept in. It was beautiful!
We did put up with nasty wet weather.
We did go to my cousin's house for dinner. Derek cooked up a delicious meal and Lori made some very yummy pie.
I think I'd rather go somewhere normal for Thanksgiving next year. Somewhere with a Turkey Bowl. I never thought I'd miss that. Hmm.

Jaedyn's Updates

She has her third tooth* the top, front left one. The fourth is coming in to the left of her third tooth and she can drink from a straw. Cool. She is getting better and better at crawling. Currently her Jumper is inaccessible** but she has come to love it***.

I'm kinda a basket case lately. I just don't know how to deal.

~~~

* it's crooked.

** A big pile of crap in sitting in our living room waiting to be moved to storage^.
^ I finally got us a storage shed for all our extra stuff. We've needed it for SO long!

*** She hated it when it was hung in the hallway across from the washer and dryer. Now that it is in the living room and she can SEE us she is happy.

Halloween Party

Dea and friends helped me with decorations and making the food.

We had :

Graveyard dirt.

troll boogers...not a hit.

pumpkin cupcakes.

bloody spiders. not a hit.

Derek's cookies. a big hit.

apple cider

apples to bob for.

a puzzle and books

and party goers.

Dylan had a birthday.

Her Dad took pictures...

Then I made Graveyard Dirt

And mini Caramel Apples

Pumpkin carving

I tried carving Jaedy's portrate into a pumpkin this year...

Meh. It's a first try.

Update

We went to James and Alicia's for Sunday dinner yesterday.
Alicia made a delicious pot-roast with veggies and bread.
Jaedyn sat on the floor until our conversation was interrupted with her fussing*.
I pulled her on my lap and she immediately went to town on my food.
She ate my potatoes and carrots and green beans**.
She even tried for a nibble of my roast, but I drew the line at eating my meat.
After dinner we sat around and she was fussed over by these guys.
They were spoiling her with ice cream and our apple crisp dessert.

When we got home and put her to bed***, I decided enough is enough and I had Scott take a whack at my hair****.
I gave him a trim in return. We'll have to get pictures with our new hair stlyes sometime. If we ever get around to it.

___________________________________________________________________

*We dropped bread crumbs on the floor at her feet, like any good parents do to children who are pigeons... Oh, wait, we have a human baby. Maybe that is why she started fussing.

**They were all cooked in the crock pot and very mushy, so she was able to take whole chunks of veggies and shove them in her pie hole~~.

~~ She also shoved her entire binki (minus the handle) into her mouth during church. I didn't get a picture because of the setting, but I have been eagerly awaiting the nest binki shove+.

+She will often put her binki in interesting positions. Usually they involve her cheeks being propped up into a smile.

***Jaedyn has decided that sleeping is for babies. Real babies who during breast milk^ and eat baby food^^. She is a big girl who does not need to go to sleep. Especially not if she is very tired.

^ She definitively told me to stop offering that stuff at 8 months.

^^ She will sometimes let us give her some, it is convenient after all. See above regarding her current eating trend.

**** It had been two showers and I had not brushed it out between, during or after either shower~. That's when I knew I had too much hair. It had to go. Scott relieved me of at least 5 inches... probably more. I never thought my hair was so red... but it definitely looks red in the photo. It looked red in real life too, that's why I took the photo.

~Eww. I know.

New format...

I have been inspired* by one of my favorite author's blogs. The way she writes is much more inline with the way I think**. Stay tuned for more exciting blog posts that are *** easier to read.

~~~

* When am I not inspired by something I see online? I mean Blogs are perfect for getting inspired by something^.

^ In my case it is usually more than one something. Thus I get woefully overwhelmed with the cool things I could be doing, but am not.

** Which is all over the place, obviously.

*** hopefully!

A new post

I really don't get how some bloggers are full time mommies, have a crafty business and blog consistently. Maybe it's because I can't upload pictures from work. Or I am raising two kids very close in age and another a little older. Or my eyes hurt from looking at the computer so long. Or I can't decide if I should do crafts, paint and do art, cook or bake, read, or work out. There is way to much inspiration for my little brain (budget).
I come up with like 5 things to blog about each day. When I get home I have forgotten and I'm usually to tired to do anything anyways.
But I am inspired, you super mom-bloggers. Keep it up!

Fall in Redmond

Jaedyn and I were in Downtown Redmond yesterday running errands. It was so pretty that we had to come back with Scott when I had my camera.

This tree is so brilliantly red. It was well defined by the green trees behind it, and we think it was one of our favorites.

This is the green tree next to the red one. Notice the random red branches UNDER the green ones.

Scott and Jaedy taking a walk.

The trees change color in different patterns. I remember Grandpa O. telling me about it. Some change from top to bottom and others from bottom to top.

Even the bushes are changing color.

These trees are my favorite. They are awesome! They have just about every color of the rainbow, some all on one tree. With the sun behind them, they really look on-fire.

And then we saw these, purple, leaves. How cool is that!?!

In other news, it was really misty one day. I took Dylan to the park and at 9:30AM the soccer field looked like this:

Back to downtown, we were so hungry after our photo trip downtown that we stopped at the first food lace around. Carolina BBQ. Holy Cow! it was Dang Good. We split a platter with ribs, shredded pork and pot roast, fried okra and corn bread. It fed us both until we couldn't make room for dessert.

I dresses Jaedyn up for church today (usually Scott does that). She looked so cute. It's hard to tell but we've got her hair up in a alfalfa sprout! She is growing hair!

We saw this cool flower arrangement and then saw it was stuck in a pumpkin. How festive. Maybe someday I'll be that decorative.

Until then I'm enjoying the picture.