The day after Christmas, I was snuggled on the couch. In my jammies, under a soft blanket and contentedly reading my Kindle…I was in my happy place.
The boys were quietly occupied in their playroom. Putting all their Christmas presents to good use: Matthew puttering around with his new trains and Ian playing his new Wii game.
Mike was upstairs doing something and came down after a while. He walked into the playroom and almost immediately popped his head around the corner to speak to me.
“You’ve got to come here”, he said.
I groaned. (I was comfy and warm.)
He followed with “Oh, it’s worth it. Believe me!”
And what did I see when I turned the corner?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Matthew sitting in the drawer for the train table!!!
This child is such a little stinker. The trouble he gets into in his sweet, curious, innocent little way!
I don’t know if it’s because he’s the baby or what but it’s absolutely impossible to stay mad at him. LOL
We decided to decorate cutout cookies this year and had a ton of fun while we put icing and sprinkles on the cookies. Unfortunately, a nasty round of the flu tore through the house and all the cookies had to be tossed (pun completely intended). 😉
Since all the cookies were gone and we had nothing to leave out for Santa, we decided to bake a whole new batch and have Andrew help us out when he came to town. Round two of decorating ended up being even MORE fun.
Round 1 (12/11/10):
Someone thought he **coughMikecough** was going to win a cookie decorating contest:
Note the icing and sprinkles on Matthew’s face:
Videos:
Round 2 (12/23/10):
Sissy didn’t decorate but she was there to supervise:
Not too shabby:
We ended up decorating almost 3 dozen cookies and having plenty to split between the Samulski and the Jones/Alt households.
On December 1st, we went shopping for a Christmas tree at Sooth’s. They have their trees in a greenhouse so you’re protected from the elements and they hang the trees from the ceiling so you can turn to the trees to see it from all sides. The location and set up are nice but the staff is RIDICULOUSLY friendly and helpful. We love going there every year!
Ready to start shopping:
We found our tree:
Getting ready to pay. Please notice that the Food Detective (Matthew) has found the baked goods:
The very friendly guy manning the register asked if he could take a picture of all of us. We said “yes” and he asked us to say “Ho! Ho! Ho!” Do you like the stupid expressions on our faces!?!?! LOL (Mental note: never ask someone to say “Ho! Ho! Ho!” if you plan to take their picture!)
The Food Detective’s reward for finding the cookies:
Packed up and ready to go home:
All decorated:
One of my most favorite ornaments:
That ornament reminds me of Grammy and Papaw Singer’s tree. When we were really little, we used to sleep at their house Christmas Eve and wake up to toys under the tree Christmas morning. Glass ornaments always remind me of those Christmases.
Initially, I planned to make chocolate covered pretzel rods. As Christmas approached, I realized that making enough for all the teachers (6 in total) would take up a lot of space. When I saw a recipe for pretzel hugs in my blog reader, I knew it would be perfect. They were super easy to make and didn’t take up too much space in the fridge before they were gifted to the teachers.
I used 3 bags of Hershey Hugs so we had a bunch of pretzel hugs leftover after the gifts were all made. I set them out on Christmas and they were snapped up in a flash!
Pretzel Hugs
Ingredients:
– 1 pkg of Hershey’s Hugs
– 1 pkg red and green M&Ms (I used peanut AND plain.)
– Square shaped pretzels
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
2. Line a cookie sheet with wax paper and place a single layer of the pretzel on the paper.
3. Remove all foil wrapping from each hug and place one on the center of each pretzel.
4. Place in the oven for 3 – 4 minutes until the hug starts melting.
5. Take it out of the oven and immediately press 1 or 2 M&Ms onto the top of each hug.
(It’s nice when your 4 year old decides to pick up the camera and document the process. Perhaps I have a future blogger on my hands?!?!)
6. Let the cookie sheet cool for a while and then place it in the fridge for the pretzel hugs to set.
I packaged these in clear plastic treat bags, put them inside Christmas-themed pails ($1 each from Walmart) with a little sparkly Santa gift tag peaking out!
Tips:
– I think that the peanut M&Ms were better than plain. The chocolate + pretzel + peanut was a win. I think the plain M&Ms were good…but the peanut just made it even better.
– I found that it was easier/less messy to push the M&Ms in the hug if you let them cool a bit after coming out of the oven. They still were soft enough to hold the M&M but you had less gooey spillage off the pretzel when they had cooled a bit.
– You could easily do this for other holidays with color appropriate M&Ms (Halloween, Easter, etc). I plan to make these more frequently than just at Christmas!
Recipe originally from Simply Kelly Designs.