Gingerbread (Graham Cracker) Houses and Fudge

On Wednesday we Shaelyn had some friends over and we decorated Graham Cracker houses. They all pretty much ended up a pile of candy on top, but the kids enjoyed it! These are Shaelyn's friends, and we are so glad they could join us!

Shaelyn and her house. Nice mop :)

Winston with his house. He did a great job with his roof and walkway.

William with his house, okay mommy's house, but he did help eat the candy when I was trying to put it on. What a big helper.

This is Walters house on skis and a massive chimney. I am glad I got this picture because the chimney got a little bigger and then the roof collapsed :( Oh well.

Then on to Walter's annual Fudge making challenge. Every year he is determined to make fudge from scratch and not with the marshmallow creme (the kind I like to make, because it works every time). He likes a challenge, I just like it to taste good. I just have to say that this year it was a big success, very creamy and smooth. Good Job Babe!

Christmas Goodies

Shaelyn and I have been busy making some cookies for the holidays. We thought we would try some new recipes this year. Both recipes have turned out pretty good. We took the recipes from the Taste of Home Magazine, Love it! The first recipe we tried was Candy Cane Cookies. We had a lot of fun with these ones.

William wanted to see what was going on.

Candy Cane Cookies

1 C Butter, softened

1 C Confectioners' Sugar

1 egg

1-1/2 tsp. Almond extract (I didn't have this so I substituted 1 tsp. butter extract, turned out great!)

2-1/2 C all-purpose flour

1 tsp salt

Red Food Coloring

1/2 C crushed peppermint candy canes (I didn't have these but I did have the pinwheel mints)

1/2 C Sugar

Cream butter and confectioners' sugar til light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and extract. Combine flour and salt; gradually add to creamed mixture and mix well.

Divide dough in half; add 6-7 drops of coloring to one half. Shape tablespoonfuls of each color of dough into 4-in, ropes. Place each side by side and lightly pinch ends together and twist. Place on ungreased baking sheet: curve to form canes.

Bake 375 for 9-12 min or till lightly browned. Combined crushed candy canes and sugar; immediately sprinkle over warm cookies. Cool for 2 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks to cool.

These are a lot of fun for kids to make and they turn out pretty cute.

The second recipe we tried was:

Pecan Meltaways

1 C Butter; Softened

1/2 C Confectioners' Sugar

1 tsp Vanilla

2-1/4 C all-purpose flour

1/4 tsp Salt

3/4 C chopped pecans

Additional Confectioners' sugar

Cream butter, confectioners' sugar, and vanilla till light and fluffy. Combine flour and salt: gradually add to creamed mixture and mix well. Stir in pecans. Refrigerate until chilled.

Roll into 1-in balls and place on ungreased baking sheets. Bake 350 for 10-12 min or till set. Roll warm cookies in confectioners' sugar;cool completely on wire racks. Foll cooled cookies again in confectioners' sugar.

Yumm!

Pumpkin Seed Recipe

I was searching around for a good pumpkin seed recipe and kind of came up with my own. The kids LOVE them! I kind of think they are pretty tasty myself. I wouldn't be posting the recipe if I thought it was bad. Toasted Pumpkin Seeds
2 C Pumpkin Seeds
1 1/2 T Olive Oil
1/4 tsp Salt
1/8 tsp Granulated Garlic (powder, or minced if you want to go fresh just add a bit more)
1/2 T Worcestershire Sauce

Remove seeds from pumpkin and wash (some recipes say not to wash, I have found that it doesn't make much of a difference except that it is a quicker way to get them clean). Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Spread a thin layer over a baking pan. Bake at 250 deg for about 1 1/2 hours to 2 hours. Stirring about every 15 minutes till you get to your desired crunchiness. Let cool and Enjoy!

The following pictures are ones that were taken at dinner. Everyone was in a silly mood. I didn't catch the picture I wanted of William, he was sticking his 4 bottom teeth out a lot further, it was pretty funny.
Winston was doing a silly happy face.

And I don't know what is up with Shaelyn's hair but I think she took a nap before this photo.

Trunk-or-Treat and Pumpkins!

Thursday we had our ward Trunk-or-Treat. We all dressed up. William had his nose on for about 5 minutes then it was smeared all over his face. I guess he had an itch, I am sorry I didn't get a picture of it. From Left to Right we have Mickey Mouse, Belle, and Woody. I went as Snow White. I had forgotten I had this in my closet. I was having fun with the kids and speaking in a Snow White voice, Shaelyn said I was faking really well. Look at this awesome Pumpkin that I found! One of my previous Laurels made this Snow White Pumpkin, you Rock Jasmine! We also found another fellow Disney Princess, and we had to get a picture together! This picture is actually from Lisa (Cinderella). Aren't we all just so cute!

Now I would like to present Shaelyn's Pumpkin. She came up with the design and everything. She cut out all the pieces by herself. I did cut open the top. She did all the scooping and fun stuff! I thought it turned out pretty good for her first pumpkin. What do you think? Then there is my pumpkin. The little boys were going to help but they didn't like the pumpkin slime. I was very surprised that they didn't want to dig in. Anyway, it ended up just being me who did the dirty work. I thought I would go with the Disney theme and create their iconic character, who other than Mickey Mouse. Also Walter wasn't there to protest. He was at work.

Here they are together. I didn't take a picture of them when it was dark enough so you can't see all the detail, but you get the idea.

Shaelyn and her great artistry!

She got her pumpkin on a class field trip to a local patch. She was so proud of her little pumpkin.

Family Birthday Party for Winston

I asked Winston if he wanted a cake or cupcakes, and he chose cupcakes as you can see. He also wanted to help decorate them with gummy bears. These are chocolate on chocolate with gummy bears on top, yumm . . . for kids. Walter and I just picked off the bears. Here are the kids placing all the gummy bears.

Shaelyn wanted me to take a picture to show off all her hard work :)

Winston was concentrating very hard, and did a great job!

Winston turned 4 so he got to pick out 4 cupcakes and put the candles on himself. Enjoy the birthday song.

Winston was so happy to get the Land Before Time video, he really has been into dinosaurs lately. I just hope we don't end up with all 30 of the sequels. The movie was from Grandma-ma and Family.Here he is tearing into another present from Grandma-ma.

He got some kid friendly golf clubs! Yeah! No more playing with Daddy's clubs because he has the right size just for him :)

He also was willing to share with brother and sister, this set came with 3 clubs. Talk about perfect!

William enjoyed his cupcake. Most of the frosting ended up on his face. I guess if it doesn't get all over the place it doesn't belong in your face. Oh man that is bad but oh well!

And last but not least, Shaelyn and Winston will leave you with their dance!

Sour Pickles!

For the past couple of months we have had a farmer's market co-op in our ward. It has been awesome. We ended up with a lot of cucumbers that I didn't think we could finish on our own and so I thought I would make an attempt at canning my own pickles. Shaelyn was a big help! We used my grandma's recipe, it is at the bottom of the post. Just a warning, we opened one just recently and they are very sour. I don't know if they have to age for a while to get to the right taste, this is just my first attempt.

Cucumbers in the bottle.

Now the added spices.

Add boiling vinegar and water.

Put the lid on and boil for about 10 minutes.

Quick Dill Pickles

4 pounds (quarts) Cucumbers

6 T Salt

3 C Vinegar

3 C Water

3 T Dill Seed OR 9 heads fresh/dries dill

1 T whole mixed pickling spices

18 whole black peppers

Wash Cucumbers thoroughly. For whole cucumbers, small sizes up to 4" are preferred. Larger sizes may be packed whole provided they are processed for a longer time. Usually with larger cucumbers it is better to slice, quarter, or halve lengthwise before pickling.

Combine salt, vinegar and water; heat to boiling. Pack cucumbers into hot sterilized jars. For each Quart jar, add 1 T or 3 heads of dill, 1 T pickling spices and 6 whole black peppers. Fill with boiled vinegar-salt solution to withing 1/2" of top for quarts or 1/4" for pints.

Process Large whole cucumbers in boiling water for 10 min in pint jars or 20 min in quart. Process small whole cucumbers or sliced, halves, or quarters in boiling water for 5 min in pint jars or 10 min in quarts.

*Note: For Kosher-Style Dill Pickles, follow this recipe except when adding spices, also add 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and halved, to each jar.

This recipe was perfect for 3 quart-sized jars.

Shiner

Do you like Winston's black eye? This happened at the end of January. He actually got it from falling off of a little mini cooler and into a chair. It was probably one of the scariest accidents that has happened at my house. He had a huge goose bump off the side of his head. It turned black like this the next morning.

I was trying to get an updated picture of Winston's eye and Shaelyn insisted I take a picture of her. So she posed.

This is a few days later, it migrated to the bottom of his eye making it look even worse.


I thought this was a cute picture, they actually look like they like each other, lol! Just kidding, they are the best of buds!

I also thought I would give you my first week update.Isn't that awesome, I still can't believe it! A whole 4.6 pounds in one week! I know that most of it is probably water weight and also had to do with yesterday was fast Sunday, but Still! Anyway, here is a healthy recipe that I have come across in a pampered chef recipe book. They are pretty good.

Sweet and Saucy Meatballs
Meatballs
1/4 C chopped onion
1 package (1 1/4 lbs) 93% lean ground turkey
1 egg white
1/4 C seasoned dry bread crumbs
1 tsp dried thyme leaves
1 garlic clove minced
1/2 tsp salt
Sauce (We didn't make the sauce because we didn't have all the ingredients so we used Mr Yoshitas sauce and ketchup mixed together, it was yummy)
1 can (8 oz) jellied cranberry sauce
1/4 C ketchup
1/4 C orange marmalade
2 T Brown Sugar
1 T Worcestershire sauce
Preheat oven to 400 deg. Combine all Meatball ingredients in a bowl. Form 1 inch balls; place in a single layer over bottom of 9X13 pan. Bake 15 minutes; drain.
Meanwhile, combine sauce ingredients, mix well. Pour over meatballs evenly. Return to oven; continue baking 15 minutes.
*If you want to make the meatballs without the sauce just reduce the time to 25 minutes. These would be great in spaghetti
Yield: 10 servings (40 meatballs)
Nutrients per serving (4 meatballs): Calories 170, Total Fat 3.5 g, Saturated Fat 1 g, Cholesterol 35 mg, Carbohydrate 23g, Protein 12g, Sodium 340 mg, Fiber less than 1 g
Diabetic exchanges per serving (4 meatballs): 1 1/2 starch, 1 low-fat meat (1 1/2 carb)

Happy Birthday Winston!

So Winston had a fun birthday. I took my castle bunt cake pan that my Aunt Wendy gave me for Christmas and made Winston's cake. I thought it would make a great haunted house that the kids could help decorate.Everything was pretty random. I just wanted to make sure Winston got a birthday cake, otherwise I think it would have been a better looking cake. So the kids are adding lots of candy to the cake.The more the better, right!I think he liked it!

I think Shaelyn enjoyed it too. Of course she wanted to pose for a picture.
Here is the finished cake, well sort of. There are two towers missing. It almost looks like the cake has lava coming out, that wasn't my intent, but it is kind of funny!


Here is a lovely video that has footage of me decorating the cake. I am not in love with this video at all, because I am in it. Enough of my whining. I hope you enjoy it more than I do. :)

This video is us singing Happy Birthday. Nice and simple! Enjoy!!

Pickle Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

This was mostly Shaelyn's creation. She wanted to have a pickle and cheese sandwich, because it is good to try new things. I asked her if she was sure, and she was. I thought that it might be too dry if it was just pickles and cheese, so I thought about grilling it. She was so excited to have it grilled too! So this is a picture of the cheese and pickle sandwich on our griddle. I hope I don't disgust too many people.Here it the completed creation. I have to say that it wasn't half bad. I think I would probably try it again. If I was pregnant I would probably crave something strange like this so I will have to keep this idea stashed away for the next one. Speaking of pregnancy, my sister Ashley just had her baby on October 22! Yeah! I would post pictures but my nephew is too cute to be posted with a sandwich, he deserves his own post!