Annual Christmas Candy Making Day!

This year I told myself I was going to take it easy and only do a few simple things for my Christmas candy.....{yeah right!}

peppermint bark and marshmallow chocolate fudge....

peanut butter cups and the ever so famous peanut butter ritz cracker sandwiches covered in milk chocolate...

lots of chocolate covered pretzels too....and not pictured are the Moose Munch popcorn mix, hot chocolate stirring spoons, and Red Velvet Whoopie Pies. {Can you hear my thighs getting bigger?}

I have done this annual Christmas Candy making day for almost 10 years. I think I started doing it the year that Landon turned 1 year old. I haven't missed a year since. There was one year where I had to do it solo, but the rest of the years I was able to do it with family or friends. I have never had the same group two years in a row though. I love the new recipe ideas that people bring with them each year and it is so much fun to spend the day with such fun people. I wish I had taken more pictures this year, but I'm pretty sure my hands were coated in chocolate for about 7 hours straight. I did get this cute picture just before the chocolating began.....

This is Mackenzee and Hannah after they frosted a few cookies. We were waiting for the rest of the group to get to my house and the girls were dying to "help" in the kitchen. Don't you just love how they decided that the frosting was just better straight out of the jar? I caught them double dipping their knives in the frosting container. Can you say sugar high?

Thanks so much Ellen and Montay for your ideas and for your willingness to get crazy in the kitchen with me. I hope the mounds of chocolate you took home made it worth it! :0) See you next year!

December craziness continued...

This month is almost half over! Holy cow! Is anyone else tired?

I feel as though I've been going a hundred miles a minute for the last several weeks. We had the Arnold family Christmas party at my Grandma Casperson's house last weekend. This event always includes a rousing game of gift bingo. Me and Mackenzee went home with our arms full of fun treasures {a Dora letter book, Hello Kitty light up stamp, Dora necklace, oven mitts, iTunes gift card, coasters, and colored pencils to name a few}. Jaysen....he won a tube of chapstick. :0) Oh! And because my grandma felt sorry for him she gave him the gift certificate to Cold Stone that she had won.

I had my annual Christmas goodie making day this last week and have so much sugary sweet goodness in my kitchen right now it's scary. This year I ended up with fudge, sweet Chex Mix, White Chocolate Popcorn, Orange Creamsicle Fudge, chocolate truffles, peanut butter cups, peppermint patties, oreo cookie bark, peppermint bark, and crispy peanut butter balls. I broke my no sweets rule that day, too. :0) I HAD to sample everything to make sure it tasted good!

I also helped the kids make gingerbread cookies. In the past, they have both wanted to help roll out the dough but couldn't because my rolling pin is so heavy. So, I was so excited when I found a junior wooden rolling pin and a mini plastic rolling pin set in the dollar section of Target this year. Both my kids each rolled out their own dough and made all sorts of Christmasy shapes with cookie cutters. Sure...I couldn't tell you what each cookie came from which cookie cutter...but they had fun. And, they had even more fun frosting and decorating them. Me? I got to have "fun" cleaning up the mess left behind. Can I tell you how glad I am that we don't have carpet in the dining room anymore? :0)

Mackenzee watched the Polar Express for the first time this year and is infatuated with it. The day after she first watched it she NEEDED to go and see Santa Claus. Landon was with Jeff and so it was just her we took this year. :0( She was so funny about it though. She could hardly contain her excitement and picked out a special outfit to wear for the occassion. She told me that she was going to give Santa a hug and tell him that she loved him. And, actually, she was sure she needed to take Santa a present. It was cute. She told Santa that she wanted Dora for Christmas. I'm not sure if that means she literally wants Dora to come to our house, or if she will just settle for a Dora toy. I'm hoping for the latter. :0) After we left she became really upset because she didn't get to see Santa's reindeer or go on a train ride like the little boy from the movie did. Silly girl.

Last night was girls night and we did a gift exchange similar to the kind we did at my grandma's house. Everyone went home with something fun and we got to eat lots of yummy treats {again!} Insanely, at 9:15 the girls remaining decided they wanted to go to the movies. I had to finish up a homework assignment and so I told them to have fun. Apparently this was unacceptable to them. After we found out we had 20 minutes to get to the theatre, I was told that they would help me finish up my homework so that I could go too. So, we all crammed into my computer room down here to get it all done in time. Let's just say that this was the first "educational" girls night I think we've ever had and those girls are WAY more informed about proper nutrition throughout the different stages of life than they were before. We made it to the theatre about 10 minutes after the movie had started. CRAZY! Thanks so much ladies for your help though! That was the quickest I have ever finished up a power point presentation. I'll let you know our grade! :0)

Tomorrow is Landon's birthday party, so we will continue to be busy as the week ends. I am going to be attempting a Ben 10 birthday cake today...so wish me luck. Next week: Landon's Christmas play, my Grandpa's birthday, family Christmas, and class party.

Ready......

BREAK!

What's That? You want a muffin?

Yesterday was a busy day in the kitchen. As I said before, I am trying to get my "homemaker" ON. I canned 52 jars of peaches a while back, and then last week I did 21 pints and 10 quarts of applesauce with my mom. I still had apples left over even after all that canning, and so I decided to can them as just sliced apples that can be used later for yummy apple desserts.

Aren't they so pretty? And...they were super easy too. My mom has this fabulous contraption that not only peels the apple for me, but cores it and slices it at the same time. Each apple only took about 20 seconds to do. Even Jaysen was amazed and intrigued. :0)

And, because Mackenzee BEGS to get her bake ON almost every day, she helped me make cinnamon chip muffins last night. When I saw her grab the muffin tins like this I had to take a picture. She makes me laugh so hard. :0) My dear Landon was excited to help as well, but opted to use up one of his video game days instead. The stinker.

I'm sorry...we have to make cupcakes

Mackenzee started asking me about cookies early yesterday morning.

"Mom, ont cookies! Do-wah {Dora} cookies! Peeeaaasss!"

We had no cookies on hand. I know you are all gasping in disbelief. My sweets shelf has NO cookies? Landon finished them off last week and I haven't gotten more. So sue me! {Yes, I have a shelf in the pantry just for sweets. Is there something wrong with that?}

So, I explained to Kenzee that we were out. Well, that wasn't going to work for her. So, she said she wanted to make cookies. What? I've just recently gotten out the "helping chair" for her. She shouldn't be asking to actually MAKE things yet. Right?

{Again...some of you will understand that and some will not. So, I'll explain. Landon has been helping me in the kitchen since he was about 18 months old. Mixing, stirring, pouring, dumping....good stuff! When he helped I would get out a step stool that would get him right up to the counter and make him tall enough to do the helping. Nothing fancy. Just a step stool. He eventually named it the "helping chair". Everytime he wanted to help he would ask for his helping chair. So, now you know.}

Back to the story...Kenzee has not been as lucky as her brother. She is 28 months old. I've just barely let her in to help the last month. She's not as mellow as her brother, so I haven't dared to let her help yet. Anyway...she's done pretty good so far so I told her that we could definitely make some cookies today, but that we had to go run our errands first. She agreed on the terms and off to Target we went.

{Another disclaimer here....I don't really like to make cookies. Cookie bars...I'm all for it! But individual cookies take FOREVER! And for some reason, if they are homemade, it doesn't matter how yummy they are, they don't get eaten in my house. Store bought cookies disappear quickly though. Sigh. So, guess who ends up eating ALL of them? Me! So, for holidays I usually buy the Pillsbury holiday cake mix and use the Funfetti Cookie recipe on the side of the box. It only makes a couple dozen cookies and they are super quick and easy.}

I bought the Valentine cake mix and a tub of matching frosting while at Target so we'd be ready. After nap time, we got to mixing up the batter. Apparently my mind had completely forgotten the whole point of us buying that box of cake mix because I followed the instructions for the cake mix....NOT the cookie recipe. Sigh. Too late. I'm sorry Mackenzee....we have to make cupcakes. She wasn't thrilled.

BUT, thankfully Landon walked in the door the next moment and was thrilled we were getting our "bake on" in the kitchen. He grabbed a spoon and started to fill up the cupcake liners with batter and soon Kenzee had completely forgotten about the cookies she had focused on the ENTIRE day. Thanks Landon! Did I mention how much I love you? :0)

Here is Landon showing Kenzee the "right way" to do it. For those of you noticing the dining room table chair and not the "official" helping chair...it is in the black hole that is my garage. I can't find it. Hopefully it will resurface next month when we get to finally empty it out. For now, my nice chairs will have to work. I am cringing as I look at the boots my son is wearing as he stands on it. Sigh. Oh well.

This is Kenzee's version of "carefully filling up the cupcake liners". I think she did pretty good for her first time. Don't you?

"Mom...can I eat ALL the ones I frost?" I let him get away with THREE! And he says I'm mean! Kenzee just wanted to put the sprinkles on top.

"Dad! Help! Heew, it's pink!" Just letting you know that Jaysen did get in on the pink frosting action. He's an excellent froster. :0)

Look at that technique!

The end result. Isn't it beautiful?

After Landon realized I was going to let him eat them right after he frosted them, he piled the frosting on his third and final cupcake. He's enjoying it though! Who doesn't like a cupcake with lots of pink frosting on it?

Even if they're not cookies.