Christmas

Christmas, Christmas, Christmas...the most wonderful time of the year. I had the best of intentions a few weeks ago, of documenting all of it. The Advent wreath, the crafts, the baking, the tree, the feast day celebrations, the boys dressed up for Christmas Eve Mass, all of it.

I hit my first glitch when we went out to the tree farm to cut down our tree. We were all bundled up from head to toe, Isaac in the baby bjorn, inside my coat. We rode the hayride out to the fields, played around in the snow, and chose the perfect tree. The boys helped with the saw, we had coffee and hot cider, and so much fun. It was the kind of stuff blog entries are made of. Well, I have my memories, and you have your imagination, because I forgot my camera.

Then came the marathon cold that crept through the house from one person to the next over the last two weeks. That slowed us down and kept us home bound during the critical last ten days before Christmas, when I would normally be doing lots of shopping and planning, and maybe even blogging. Thank God we were well enough to go to Christmas Eve Mass. The boys put on their dress shirts and ties. Even Peyton, who has an aversion to any pants that aren't sweats (he thinks jeans are "church pants") and any shirt with a collar, wanted to wear a necktie once he saw how handsome his brothers looked. They were all lined up, the little set of stair steps that they are, and I was going to take a picture right then and there, but I thought, "Wait! Let's take one at the church, in front of the tree or better yet, the completed nativity!" It would have been beautiful, but, you guessed it...I forgot my camera.

It just didn't happen and that's o.k. So I'll leave it at this- a few pictures of the season, a peek into the glorious time that it was. Living it was better than documenting it anyway.

Merry Christmas!

Repeat Performance

Please refer to this for my morning's events.
Also, here is a visual:and that is how we feel right now.

Dear Mr. Smith,

I am writing to inform you, regretfully, that the following pictures are of our eldest son with his new lunch of choice. It is called a "double-decker". Should his four counterparts follow in his ravenous footsteps, we will surely be eaten out of house and home, as they say. We will miss you dearly when you take a second job to pay for the groceries.

God bless you in your efforts as our bread-winner and bringer-homer-of-the-bacon. (and it wouldn't hurt to bring home some bread and some bacon, they're hungry again)

Your Loving Wife,
Mrs. Smith

I'm not naming any names...

...because I'm not in the business of finger-pointing, but somebody just threw up all over me. Somebody apparently doesn't know how to handle it when snot gathers in his throat and disrupts his ability to breathe and swallow properly. So this little somebody got a bewildered look on his face, coughed, gagged, and let his breakfast loose on both of us. Fortunately, his breakfast consisted of breast milk, and more breast milk (was that a giveaway?), so clean up was minimal.
That's right, we're in the depths of a little annual tradition we like to call "The pre-Christmas Cold". Three persons down, four to go.

Answer of the day...

...a lot. Mexican Churros

INGREDIENTS

1 cup water

2 1/2 tablespoons white sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 cup all-purpose flour

oil for frying

1/2 cup white sugar, or to taste

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

DIRECTIONS

In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine water, 2 1/2 tablespoons sugar, salt and 2 tablespoons vegetable oil. Bring to a boil and remove from heat. Stir in flour until mixture forms a ball. Heat oil for frying in deep-fryer or deep skillet to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Pipe strips of dough into hot oil using a pastry bag. Fry until golden; drain on paper towels. Combine 1/2 cup sugar and cinnamon. Roll drained churros in cinnamon and sugar mixture.

allrecipes.com

I always at least double the recipe. The picture actually shows 6x the recipe (minus what we ate as we fried).

Question of the day

How many churros can one mom make for her childrens' Our Lady of Guadalupe party tomorrow?

Answer to come.

Let the frying begin...

Birthday Love for Daddy

Happy birthday Mr. Smith.

December 5, 2008

Happy 3rd Birthday,Oliver

Journey to Bethlehem

When I heard that our church was putting on a family Christmas program called Journey to Bethlehem I knew they would need a Baby Jesus. Well, I just happen to have an adorable, agreeable, appropriately heavenly baby boy, who (in my opinion) would fill that role quite well. So I did what any aspiring stage-mother (just kidding) would do- I volunteered him. Little did I know, they didn't just need a Baby Jesus...they needed an entire Holy Family. Any guesses what that meant? Yup. We were a package deal. Here's what it sounded like when I broke the news to "Joseph":

Mrs. Smith: "So...Isaac is going to play baby Jesus in the Christmas program."

Mr. Smith: "Cool."

Mrs. Smith: "And it just makes sense for me to play Mary. You know, it's not like he's going to sit with someone else all that time."

Mr. Smith: "Uh-huh."

Mrs. Smith: "And I really don't want some strange Joseph..."

Mr. Smith: (silence)

Mr. Smith: (glare)

Mr. Smith: (smirk)

Mrs. Smith: "I think it will be fun!"

Mr. Smith: (Mr. Smith is gone, he has left the room)

And when I told him we were to be in full character, costumed, with lines? Well, let's just say he was less than thrilled.

Then, the big day came and something miraculous happened.

They put us in a small, dimly lit room. They had set up a stable scene, complete with (wooden) donkey, (ceramic) sheep, (live) angel, and a rustic wooden manger with straw and soft white fleece for our little baby Jesus. It was showtime. Time for him to act like the Heaven-sent One he was representing.
That he did. He smiled, he cooed, he stuck his tongue out (ok, it was cute to us), and after one brief nursing session (during which no children were traumatized, I promise), he went to sleep. It looked a little something like this:

As we packed up our things to head home, Mr. Smith said, "That was fun."

Home

The mountains were memorable.

But home is oh so comfortable.