Lots of New

It's seems like we've been getting a lot of new things lately. A new dog and now a new range. This purchase wasn't by choice. On Wednesday I was baking dinner and Rod came it told me I guess you are buying a new oven since the coil is burning up. I totally missed what he was saying and told him that I was sure that it was just something in the bottom of the stove that spilled. Later I went in to check on the food and the oven temp was on the rise and the coil in the bottom of the oven was literally a blaze! The burning was working its way around the coil. At this point we turned the oven off and finally after about 15 minutes the fire went out. The kids of course were all worried. Leah was worried that our house was going to burn down. Luckily that didn't happen.

Today we decided to go and shop for a new range. I have a lot going on Saturday and Rod won't be able to shop next week since he is busy with work. I did a little Internet research trying to decide what I wanted. The process of picking the Range wasn't as difficult as I thought, but the process of getting the old range out and the new one in was quite challenging. Rod and I practically destroyed the old one getting it out. When he brought the new one in I was glad that it was a bit lighter, but not much. I had 3 stairs to go when I couldn't do it anymore. Rod's brother said he would come, but I wasn't going to have him come for 3 steps. We finally got it up.

Now it is in the kitchen and Rod is working on hooking up the electrical cord. The kids of course are helping! The had to get their tools out and work on things too.




I am excited about my new range, but hoping it turns out to be as good as it sounds. Now, to decide what I should bake and cook with it!

Candy, Cookies and Craziness

Tis the season for Christmas baking! Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy baking and making holiday treats and that's part of the reason that I do so much of it this time of year. However, I usually bite off more than I can chew when it comes to it and I never can factor all the issues that the kids have while I am trying to get it all done! All the baking and candy making that I am going to do is now done!


I decided that part of my gift to Caleb's 13 teachers, Leah's 2 teachers and 2 bus drivers and several other of my friends would be chocolate treats. This meant lots of candy making that I normally don't do. I spent a couple of days last week making 3 batches of buckeyes, chocolate truffles, a whole bag worth of white and chocolate covered pretzels, fudge and a double of recipe of peppermint chocolate bark. The kids help some with this, but mostly their job was taste testing!


This week, I made cookies. I didn't make quite as many cookies as I have other years, but still enough to keep me busy for a couple of days. I made a double batch of sugar cookies, a double batch of peanut butter kiss cookies and a batch of Russian Tea cakes. The kids were able to help more with the cookies. They really loved making cut out cookies, Alissa tried to join in too. However, after the first couple of pans, they were done and off playing. This was nice and allowed me to finish the rest. Later they returned to help me, I was almost done with the cut-outs, but thought of another thing that they could do. I decided to have them take all the wrappers off of the chocolate kisses! This was a great project for them and their reward was getting to eat one. However, when I had my back turned Alissa had climbed up on the chair with them and decided to shove them in her mouth as fast as they could unwrap! When I caught her, she was less than happy about having to get down away from the candy!

Cookie making fun!

The kids did a good job!!

The cookies that they kids made are done and Alissa is ready to dig in!


!

Paper unwrapping fun. Alissa climbed back up to see if she could get some more when I wasn't looking!

Caleb unwrapping candy. I first assigned Leah to the candy unwrapping because Caleb was off playing. He came to see what was going on and Leah assigned him the job of throwing away the papers. He happily did that for awhile, but soon Leah couldn't keep up so I had him help unwrap too!

The kids decided that they would make a face as they were unwrapping the candies!

The next day, the kids and I did ice the cookies. I did most of them, but I did save out several for them. It was so cute. Leah was an icing machine and had a lot of fun with it. Caleb was Mr. Perfectionist and wanted every last speck of the cookie covered and got mad that it wasn't going just the way he wanted. Alissa just wanted to eat the icing. When I helped her put some on the cookie she just ate it off the spreader, then off the cookie and then handed me back the spreader for some more please!

Leah had a lot of fun icing!

Caleb is putting a lot of concentration and frustration into cookie icing!

Time to eat the icing! Thanks mom!

Alissa did try to ice the cookie even if she did lick it off as soon as she put it on!

Yes, in the 45 minutes that the kids iced cookies, Caleb did two!

Finally time to eat some cookies!

Caleb eating one of his masterpieces!

Happy Valentine's Day

Valentine’s Day might be a Hallmark holiday, but it is a good reminder to take time to do something special for the people we love. I wanted to do something to acknowledge the day and make it special for the kids. Leah had a party at school and I didn’t want Caleb and Alissa to miss out so we did some celebrating too. I did get up the courage to take all three kids to Walmart. I wanted to let Leah pick out her Valentine cards for all her classmates. Caleb had to pick out some too. Leah picked princesses and Caleb picked spiderman.

I decided that we would make heart shaped sugar cookies so that Leah could take some for school and all the rest of us could enjoy them as well. Rod loves sugar cookies so I make everyone happy by making a bunch of sugar cookies. Part of the fun of it all, was to let the kids help. Leah especially loves to help make cookies and Caleb enjoyed helping this time too. He did falloff the chair and I was worried he broke his arm. It turned out that he just ended up with a terrible bruise across his arm. We baked the cookies on Tuesday evening after we got home from Leah’s dance class, so she has her dance leotard on.

The next day we iced the cookies. Both Leah and Caleb were so excited to ice them. Caleb is all about icing one and then eating it. He would much rather just eat them! Typical guy. I think that he iced a total of two cookies.

Thursday was Leah’s valentine’s party at school. She was so excited and had a great time. She was so happy to show me all her mail (her cards from her classmates). She brought a ton of candy and treats home and I don’t even want to know what she ate there. She hardly ate any lunch; I am sure because of what she ate during school. Caleb, Alissa and I want to story time at the Library on Thursday while Leah was at school. The leader asked all the kids what their favorite part of Valentine’s Day was. Caleb shouted out that he made heart cookies. The leader didn’t respond to him directly because at least 10 other kids were yelling out something too. However, Caleb just kept shouting over and over that he made heart cookies. The leader went on to start reading one of the books and I had to ask Caleb to be quiet. Caleb practically started crying that the leader didn’t listen to him. He kept saying that he wanted to tell her about heart cookies. I had to calm him down and tell him that he could tell after the story time was over. He finally calmed down, but was still disappointed and a little grumpy during the rest of story time.

Alissa didn’t get to join in on all the valentine fun, but she is enjoying eating the cookies and I got each of them some special valentine candy for tomorrow. I got Alissa her favorite, lollipops!