Lots of Pictures!!!

Wow, look at all of my pictures on this post!!! You know I worked hard because we have stinky slow dial-up, so I want lots of comments to motivate me to continue to put pictures up. I'll probably get, like, 3 or 4. These first two pictures are of our Christmas piano recital. I have 10 students, 8 kids and 2 adults. (2 of the kid students are Jeremy and Meredith) We had a little Christmas party where everyone played a festive song and the kids made cinnamon dough ornaments and then we had snacks. Fun, fun, fun!!!!! Here's the recipe for the dough ornaments (see, you do get rewarded for reading my blog): 1 cup cinnamon, a little less than 1 cup applesauce, 1 tbsp ground cloves and 2 tbsp glue. Mix it up, roll it out, cut out Christmas shapes with cookie cutters, make a hole in the top of the shape with a straw and gently scoop them up with a spatula. Place them on some saran wrap or wax paper and let them dry out completely, turning about every 24 hours. After they're dry, just put a ribbon through the hole and hang them on the tree. They're really great because even though they don't taste good, they are non-toxic (well, I guess make sure you use non-toxic glue). They smell awesome. Anyways, back to the recital, Jeremy played We Wish You a Merry Christmas and Meredith played Good King Wenceslas. I am so proud of them and how much they've progressed.




OK, the lighting is not good, but I made this picture for David and Jill for a Christmas present. I used a little packet of Joseph Smith pictures I got at the Deseret Book Store in Albuquerque for the edge. I got the idea from a friend of mine back in Tuscaloosa, April (thank you!!), who showed me how to do this using The Living Christ as the main attraction with smaller paintings of Jesus Christ around the edge. I hope they like it. I think it's pretty cool.





It's snow time here now. We are really trying to enjoy our last snowy winter. If we get our wish to move to Mobile, our sledding days are over. Anyway, the top two pictures are of the kids sledding out with Jesse. The top pic is Jeremy coming down a hill and the next is Jeremy and Meredith. The third picture is of Jeremy and Meredith waiting for the school bus with a neighbor friend. I posted this to specifically impress all of my Alabama friends who would have had their kids' school canceled if there was even a forecast for an inch of snow. Here, we just go about normal lives even if it's snowing. (We do have snow days sometimes, though, if it's really, really bad) But guess what, I can drive in the snow now, aren't you proud? You can leave a comment about this as well. The last picture is of Jeremy and Sam with some neighborhood friends out in the backyard playing in the snow. We've actually had a lot of snow this week and have used up all of our snow days already. The cool part is, it made our Winter Break be almost 3 weeks long as opposed to two. The bad part is, if we have any more snow days this year (likely) we might end up going to school the first few days in June. I think the word 'snow' is used like, 100 times in that paragraph but I guess whatever.



I love Star Wars Jeremy. The best part about these pictures is, I didn't take them. I just found them on my camera when I was reviewing pictures one day. This means that at some point, either Meredith or Samuel had my camera without me knowing and was taking random pictures. Scary. However, I love, love, love my kids playing like this. I should brag on them for one second. They love to play pretend. They love to play outside. I have the golden fortunate opportunity to have kids who don't always like to watch TV or play video games. As a result, Jesse and I don't have any time limitation for these things. Sometimes, when I need to get stuff done and they're being crazy, I have to BEG them to watch a movie so I can have a little peace and quiet. How messed up is that? I'm really glad of it, though.

How about another reward for reading my blog. OK.

Christmas Eggnog Cookies:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 sticks salted butter (I use margarine), softened
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 large egg yolks
1/2 cup eggnog

Combine flour, baking powder, nutmeg and cinnamon. Then in another bowl, cream butter, sugar, vanilla, egg yolks and eggnog. Add dry mixture to this and beat on low just until mixture is combined. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets about 1 inch apart. Sprinkle with nutmeg. Bake at 300 degrees for 20-22 minutes. *I actually like to use parchment paper on the pans because they always seem to stick a little bit no matter what I do.
These cookies are really good and extremely festive, I mean, they taste like eggnog, for crying out loud. They're really unique and everyone loves them.

So, that's my big huge picture post. Upcoming posts: Adam's 1st birthday (tomorrow!!!!!!), Jesse's Master's degree (diploma should arrive in January), and of course, Christmas Day.