Biscotti for Ethan

The other day Ethan asked me to make "those cookies we eat with hot chocolate".   I've been wanting to make biscotti forever and why it's taken me so long I am not sure.   I can't believe how easy they are.  And how good!  

I could buy a container at Costco for $15, or make my own for less than  $3.  There are many things I will leave to the experts but there are some, like these cookies, that are too easy, delicious and cheap to make at home that I could never justify or want to buy store bought again.

I have had THIS recipe bookmarked for about a year.  Something about the name appealed to my  inner old-fashioned baker.  Not sure if these are more old fashioned than biscotti, but I just loved the name.

I think Mandel Bread is softer than biscotti  & since I was going for crunchy I baked it twice as long as it called for.  YUM!  I also dipped it in chocolate.  I am pretty sure there was a typo in the original recipe that left that step out.

This is the type of recipe that is really hard to mess up.   Add nuts, add chocolate, add vanilla or almond extract.  I am pretty sure it will all turn out great!

This recipe made about 3 dozen and it took us less than 2 days to polish them off.  Yup, we're good like that.

My brother Kyle is in town with his daughter Iree and his girlfriend Anna.  Dinner tonight was out of this world good.  Fish tacos with all the fixings & warm brownies with peppermint ice cream for dessert, courtesy of my sister Jeannette.

After seeing Instagram on so many blogs I had to find out for myself what this new-fangled app was all  about.  I am completely hooked.  My husband is mad at all y'all cause now every time he turns around I am taking photos with his phone.  Of course I use Glenn's phone as you know I eschew technology.  Obviously.

 Kyle & Anna

Ethan my love  <3 HEART<3 HEART<3 HEART

 Jeannette with her daughter Kiera

Glenn & I   my first love

Doesn't everyone eat ice cream and then make all the kids compete to see who can do the most push ups?

Also, isn't everyone who is able to transfer Instagrams from their email to their blog for the first time without any help considered a genius?

Christmas Magic

I wanted to surprise the kids with a good snack when they came home from school today.  They love the soft pretzels from the shops at the mall so I thought I would try and find a recipe similar to those.
 
THIS ONE came pretty darn close.  Even Glenn said they were the best he's ever had.  Wow, thanks honey.

I love how AllRecipes has the comment suggestions at the bottom. After reading through a dozen or so I took a few of the suggestions including decreasing the flour from 5 cups to 4.  While not as good as the mall pretzels, they were really soft and yummy.  And easy!  I'll have to keep practicing.

I love prepping food in the morning.   Better yet I love prepping and cooking food so that when dinner time comes all we have to do is sit down and chow.

I always lose steam as the day goes on.  Especially in the winter when it becomes dark, I always get anxious that I should be putting kids to bed, not starting on dinner.  So I adore my crock pot and use it a lot.

Seeing how I only have about an hour and a half of daylight by the time the kiddos are all home, I want to spend that with them at the park or on a bike ride, not in front of the stove.

I stumbled upon Slow Cooker Split Pea Soup on Kath's blog and thought 'oh yeah, split pea soup, why haven't I made that lately?'

So I did.

Plus a hearty healthy soup balances out all of this............

Physically the kids have 1 more day of school.  Mentally, they are already on Christmas break.  No homework tonight meant we could all snuggle up and watch Elf.  My kids loved it!

At the end a reporter says "I guess we'll never know what happened on this Christmas Eve" (or something similar).  Ethan said "I know what happened!" (meaning he knows Santa came)

Emry's in the know, Lila's not letting on if she's in the know.  But Ethan............he believes with his whole heart.  To see that wonder, there's nothing like it.  To experience Christmas through a child's eyes is the most wonderful experience.  I know it's only a matter of time.  But for now......these next couple of weeks and for a few Christmas' to come, I will bask in his wonder & awe. 

   

Merry

I saw these snowflakes HERE  and thought them the perfect craft/snack.  Perfect in that their easy assembly and 3 ingredients appealed to my non-crafty lazy side.

Although I learned they aren't really for the lazy because you are left with tons of colored sugar throughout your now very sticky kitchen.

Probably just my kids.  They like to pretend it's snowing sugar.  So fun.

This is Emry with 2 little kids she was babysitting.  They look like they belong to us huh?  Apparently White People can all look alike too.

 So after a day of shopping, making gingerbread, 'easy' snowflakes and tons of cleaning we took our 3, my sisters 2, and the 2 Emry was babysitting to our church Nativity Festival.  Yes that's 7 children.  To a festival with tons of breakable Creche displays.

Glenn and I are super smart.

Our church does this every year and it is awesome!  It totally gets you in the Christmas spirit with all of the displays, music from groups and schools throughout the community and a room with an actual live nativity.

Didn't think it appropriate to take a picture of baby Jesus, but he was absolutely precious in his little manger.  The room they were in was decorated so authentic and Mary and Joseph looked so great with their robes and their little baby.  Although I did notice baby Jesus had "his" ears pierced.

LDS people from all over Temecula donate their Creche's to display.  The result is stunning.  Especially with a beautiful symphony singing and playing Christmas music.

This Harp music was lovely.  She was just your entrance entertainment.  As soon as you entered the main Hall there was choir upon choir singing and jingling their hearts out.

All our darlings.  Mine are as follows: Ethan with the 'I am going to ruin your picture' face, Emry with the 'I am hiding the sweater you made me wear because it's so ugly' pose, and Lila rockin' the hot pink leg warmers' because what else would you wear to visit 'Baby Jesus'.

I was on those kids the whole night.  'Don't touch', 'Back away', 'Stay together', 'Just look', 'No reaching', on and on and on.

That's why I love Glenn.  He's so chill.  He kinda, sorta parents differently than me.  You know me with no cell phone who's eyes never leave the 7 kids around all the hundreds of breakables.

Glenn knows how to put all the responsibility on me.

Well played Glenn.

Well played.

Christmas Card Rewind

A tradition I started when Emry was 1 was sending out Christmas cards.   Sometimes they included notes or funny poems about what was going on in our life.  Some of these are pictures of pictures as I was the last person on earth to get with the program and go digital.

2001 - This was taken in downtown San Jose, Ca.

2002 - This was taken in our apartment in San Jose.  Lila was a few weeks old and I am sleep deprived!

2003- We had just moved to Temecula that summer and would be spending our first Christmas just our little family.  This was taken in a neighbors home.  She took a few of us as a family but I wasn't happy with the way they turned out.  Bummer because I had just cut all my hair off and it looked really cute.

2004 - This is in front of our home in Temecula.  I was about 5 months pregnant with Ethan and not feeling too great.  I love the girls pale blue dresses.  This was a very happy time as we prepared for the holidays and our new baby boy come March.

2005 - Precious sleeping angels.  This was a hard picture to get.  Glenn was in another country as he would not have condoned the moving around of sleeping kids.   Once the kids were asleep I had to move them one by one into my room praying that they wouldn't wake up.  I had to move them around and take tons of pictures.   The first round didn't turn out and I had to repeat this process the next night.

Stamped inside the card were the words 'O Holy Night'.

 2006 - This is our first professionally taken photo.  I love this picture.  The kids look sweet and I have my dream hair.  I slept in curlers to achieve it.

2007 - Just a collage of various pics.  Nothing too clever.  Our life.

2008 - I was feeling tight with time and money and didn't send out Christmas cards this year.  I wanted a yearly picture though so I snapped this after church.

2009 - This was taken professionally in a huge park in the next town over.  My entire family was in Temecula for Thanksgiving and we were able to get a complete Mitchell picture.  My parents with all of their kids and grand kids, 31 of us in all.

2010 - My favorite Christmas picture.  While running one day early in the year this exact photo popped into my mind, exactly how you see it.  The day we took it Glenn had 15 minutes between conference calls so my mom came over to snap our picture.

I was the only one who got ready so it was super easy. I placed everyone where they needed to be and told my mom to take a hundred pictures, one would surely turn out.

I've gotten more comments on this picture than any other, and continue to get them.  Some people even told me straight up they were copying my idea.  Flattering.

I love it because it is us.  It's who we are and what we do.

 As Christmas nears I will post our 2011 picture.

In other news Ethan is back in school feeling good.  Lila is home sick after barfing in her bed last night.  Glenn and I took turns throwing up all night and Emry called at about 10 am from school because yup, she's sick.

I am achey and nauseous but glad we will all be done with this flu before the holidays begin.

I am wishing you all a healthy holiday season.

Best Laid Plans

Today did not go as planned.  At all.

It started about 1 am this morning with a little boy coming into my room after he had thrown up all over his bed and floor.  Obviously we just got the carpets professionally cleaned a month ago.  My kids prefer a clean slate on which to vomit on.  Of course I had to have him right by my side to watch over my little sick one.  Of course Glenn had to take his pillow and go sleep in the guest room.

At 6:30am I left my sleeping family and drove down the street to Walmart to get Ethan a Redbox, Sprite and to return some boots I bought for Emry.

Ethan & I both played hooky as I usually help in his classroom on Tuesdays.  While Ethan watched 'Cars' I got to mailing out my Christmas cards.

I also made Cheez It Bark for a cookie exchange Emry was going to tonight with all the girls in our church.   While I boiled butter and sugar Ethan built me some castles.

By late afternoon he said he was totally fine.  Great, I'll take the girls to Target as planned to find Emry the perfect pair of boots.  All I want are some brown casual boots for her.  No heel.  Mid-calf.  Nice enough to wear to church.  I have been to about 5 stores and no luck. We score at Target.

We'll be efficient and run a few errands.  I look in the back seat and my 'fine' boy is fading fast.

The new plan is to go straight home and put baby boy to bed.

I make dinner and tell Emry all about the yummy treat I made for her cookie exchange.

What?  The cookie exchange is next week?

The new plan is to box up all the Sweet & Salty Cheez It Bark and deliver it to our neighbors along with a Christmas card.

Is it Good?

Well I'll tell you this......

My new plan is to make it again.

My Grown Up Christmas List

 Dear Santa, I could really use some more:   sugar, chocolate, butter, flour, powdered sugar, unsweetened cocoa, butter, nuts, vanilla, popcorn, butter, sprinkles, karo syrup and...... oh yeah, BUTTER!

Normally I eat pretty healthy, but I have to admit I fall prey to the lure of all the goodies this season has to offer.  I try not to go overboard (I only O.D. on one thing, the White Chocolate Carmel Corn I make every year.  To be discussed, analyzed and obsessed over in a later post.  Consider yourselves warned), but I have to taste EVERYTHING!  In the name of research.

Christmas means you have a reason to make all the beautiful and fun treats you drool over but don't have an excuse to make.

It's CHRISTMAS!!!!!  Cook, Bake and slave away in the kitchen all month.  What could be more fun than that?

Normally I wouldn't make cookies that called for maraschino cherries, shortening and sprinkles.  But it's Christmas.  I am going to throw caution to the wind and even use white flour.  They look so festive I just had to make them.

 
Seeing as how I've spent all my money on baking supplies I had to bypass Macy's & even Marshall's and buy some much needed black boots at Payless Shoe Source.  They have a great variety of shoes for the family, but their quality leaves much to be desired.

If only I would have waited a couple of weeks I could have asked Santa for real leather boots.

They would have been under the tree Christmas morning.

Right alongside 50 lbs of butter.

Comfers Cozers Food

We do not say comfort, or even comfortable in this house (well, maybe Glenn does, but he's no fun).  We say Comfers Cozers (comfortable & cozy, but even better!).

"Let's get comfers cozers on the couch and read a book together", "Brutus, are you so comfers cozers all wrapped up in your blanket?", "Mom can we all get comfers cozers in your bed and watch a movie?", "Let's make some comfers cozers hot chocolate".

It goes on & on.  When I am talking to Brutus it is in the babiest baby voice with no less that a dozen comfers cozers in one sentence.  Completely understandable seeing how he takes about 10 naps a day.

 
I saw THIS RECIPE in Rachel Ray's magazine (scored for 25cents thrifting on Black Friday) and it took me back to my childhood.  Sloppy Joe's was in our dinner rotation and we all loved it.

I don't think in 15 years of marriage I have ever made Sloppy Joe's.  It was getting to be that time again.  The time when my husband's eyes glaze over and I *sense he needs a break from the pasta, lentil soups, vegetable soups, beans, tofu and salads.  The Man wants some red meat.

(*By sense I mean he straight up tells me he's telling my mom I don't feed him enough and then my mom admonishes me to feed my man.  Glenn is fully aware she will always be on his side, she's a Farmer's daughters for goodness sake).

So I whipped up some delicious comfers cozers sloppy joe's and my kids hated them.  I guess I kinda forgot my kids don't like hamburger.  Serves me right for keeping them from McDonald's all these years.

Glenn went out on an errand after dinner and brought me my favorite frozen yogurt to settle down and relax with whatever's DVR'd.

After 3 naughty children turned up their nose at my dinner, I definitely  deserved some Comfers Coze.