Psssssst. I've Got A Secret

Hi. I've got a secret. I went to the library today and picked up a book I put on reserve last week. I've started reading it already. I'm enjoying it, even though it is not the best written book I've ever read. I've been wanting to read this book for a while, since I saw it advertised several months ago. But, I didn't want to buy it, and I didn't really want anyone to know I wanted to read it. Then it hit me. The library. I can get it for free and read it and enjoy it. So I did get it, today.

The book? It's called "Jonathan's Story" and its about some characters from a soap opera I've watched on and off since 7th grade. I starting watching Guiding Light back in 1985, and have followed it loosely ever since. I don't watch it in it's entirety ever, because it just doesn't fit into my shcedule. But, I watch enough bits and pieces to know whats happening, and I watched enough to see this book advertised at the end of the episodes.

At first I thought, "Who would want that?" And, "Who would spend money on that?" But then it started to grow on me. I wanted it. Me.

But here's my problem. My husband. He reads voraciously. He reads authors like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Michael Chabon. I once bought him a Norman Mailer book for a present. I think if he sees me reading this book I am going to get a look of incredulity from him. I think he will shake his head and smirk. I don't know if I can take that, but I want to read my book.

I've got it!! If I read it instead of watching one of my reality shows I might be able to redeem myself. Now, which one to get rid of? That's a tough one.

What To Do On A Snow Day

My kids had a snow day off from school on Friday and we took full advantage of it. After everyone was informed of the no school knowledge (my husband went out to shovel the driveway without informing my son, so as soon as I got downstairs I was met with begging to turn the TV on to check the school closings), we settled down into relaxing and not changing out of our pajamas for a few hours. By mid-morning, the girls and I were looking for something fun to do, so we made chocolate chip cookies. I used to use the recipe on the back of the chocolate chip bag until I found this recipe, and now this is the only way I make cookies. The cookies turn out thick and delicious and full of chocolate chips. Anyways, if you are looking for a good chocolate chip cookie recipe, look no further.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 box (3.4 oz) instant vanilla pudding
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup oatmeal
1 tsp. baking soda
2 cups chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Cream butter and sugars. Add pudding mix, eggs, and vanilla. Mix. Add flour, oatmeal and baking soda to creamed mixture. Mix well. Fold in chocolate chips.
3. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets. bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned.

Yield:4-5 dozen

As the girls and I were making cookies, Ian went outside to play with two of the neighbor boys in the snow. They stayed out until their socks were wet and then asked to come inside to our house. After removing all their snow gear, they ran upstairs to Ian's room to play. After about ten minutes the girls just could not resist checking on the boys. I learned that Emma already has a great grasp on what 7 and 8 year old boys like. She knew she couldn't go up empty handed to see the boys, or she would probably be met with a loud "Get out" from her brother. So she stood outside Ian's door with her little sister for support. Then she knocked loudly and asked, "Who wants to see a dog poop?" Sure enough, the door opened and the neighbor boys looked out long enough to see Emma demonstrate how Tanner the Barbie dog poops when you lift up it's tail.

Finally, after the neighbors went home I whipped up a batch of snow ice cream. This has fast become a winter tradition when I discovered a recipe for it about three years ago. Now as soon as snowflakes start falling each winter I am met with the question, "When can we make snow ice cream?"


It was definitely a memorable snow day, the kind I like best.

P.S. I apologize for including a picture of a pooping toy dog with my recipe for chocolate chip cookies.

Snow Days

If you live in the Chicago area, you are probably at home with your kids for the first snow day of the school year. If you don't know about this website, you should. It is the WGN Radio site that lists all closings and delays. It's where I went first thing this morning (at 5:30 AM) to check and see if my kids' school was closed. With more than 1000 closings today, it's much faster than waiting for the crawl across the bottom of the TV screen.

Sibling Rivalry

I have three kids. I expect a little rivalry, one-upmanship, jealousy. However this morning I dealt with sibling jealousy as I'd never imagined I would.

Emma woke up at 4:30AM with a fever and complaining of a stomach ache. She was up until 6:15AM, when she fell back asleep on the couch. At 6:30AM, her big brother Ian ambles downstairs. When Emma wakes up at 6:40 he tells her she has to come eat breakfast. Emma comes into the kitchen informing her brother that she is not going to school today because she is sick. Instead of compassion from her brother she is met with idignation and anger. "But it's a uniform day!!" Ian protests. "She's missed more days of school than me. It's not fair!!!"

I explained that Emma has a fever and was feeling like she was going to throw up. This does not deter Ian. "Well, I felt like I was going to throw up last night. After you made me eat that meatball, I felt sick. Meatballs taste gross."

His last ditch effort came as a plea. "Can you make me something to eat that will make me sick next week?"

I imagined a lot of different situations I would deal with when I embarked on this journey of parenthood. Never once did I imagine this particular scenario.

I Know How You Feel, Elly!

Today's "For Better or For Worse" by Lynn Johnston sums up what so many stay at home moms deal with. Luckily, my husband is not like this, but I have fielded this question from other women. Elly's reaction is pretty much like I felt everytime I got that question.


If you don't have kids or do have kids but work, don't ever ask a SAHM this question, especially if she's a new mom.

Why We Can't Have Anything Nice, Part 2

Back in August I explained how my kids pulled the door off of our entertainment center. Luckily, my handy husband was able to glue it back together and today it looks no worse for the wear. Fast forward to this morning. I am brushing my teeth when my youngest comes in and explains that she didn't do it, but that she was trying to throw the towel up and it broke. OK, something broke, not a new occurrence at my house. Then I get worried. She was trying to throw it up, but it broke. That's what she said. What could she be trying to throw up to put on something. Then it occurs to me. The towel bar in the kids bathroom.

I rinse off my toothbrush and head to the kids' bathroom. There is my middle daughter preparing to brush her teeth like nothing has happened. The only problem is that behind her is the towel bar hanging precariously out of the wall on one end, with towels still half attached to the bar. I calmly ask what happened. Emma explains that she was just throwing the towel up to put it on the rack when it all came crashing down. Riiiight. I again, calmly ask if maybe she grabbed the towel rod. She said she did.

I clean up what I can and know that someone's going to have some explaining to do tonight when my husband gets home. The worst part is that we weren't going to paint the kids bathroom because the color on the walls when we moved in miraculously matched well with the shower curtain and towels I had bought before we moved in. Now, Brendan's going to have to patch the walls with some spackle, re-anchor the screws for the towel bar, and reset it all. That's going to need a little paint touch up, I think. The second worst part is that my poor husband has to live with this not only from the kids, but from me, too. In the past four months I have broken the passenger side mirror on our van, broken off the plastic piece that covers the flash on our digital camera, broken a snowman mug, and almost broke our garbage disposal. Like mother, like daughter I guess.

Fun Stamps

I was at the post office yesterday buying stamps to mail some letters to some friends as well as some bills. I bought some pretty flower stamps for the cards to my two friends and asked for a book of Forever stamps for the bills. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw the Marvel Super Hero stamps and impulsively asked the teller to throw a book of those into my order as well. I hadn't really looked at them, but having two comic book lovers in my house, I thought they'd be fun. And they are fun, but they suck, too.

See, my husband is a DC comics fan. His favorite character is Batman, but he reads a wide variety of comic titles. Because of his interest in comics, I have learned a lot about superheroes that prior to marrying him I knew very little about. I have used this knowledge to impress mostly fourth graders who were my students when I used to be a teacher in my former life. I used comic books to teach a whole lesson on the proper use of quotation marks. I spent an afternoon (okay, 15 minutes) discussing who would win in a showdown between Batman and Superman. I even impressed a few of the more well read kids with my knowledge of the names of the three Robins. But through all this I learned that the main difference between a DC hero and a Marvel hero was that Marvel relied heavily on mutants, while DC developed their characters from many varied backgrounds.

So why do I think the Marvel stamps suck? They put two female characters on the sheet, neither of them big stars. They're just there because if they put all men someone would bitch and moan that they didn't use any female characters. The first character is Spider Woman. Spider Woman? Who has ever heard of her besides comic book geeks? I mean seriously, no one knows Spider Woman. The other character was Elektra, and I don't think anyone had heard of her until Jennifer Garner played her in the "Daredevil" movie. DC has Wonder Woman, who clearly stands on her own as a well known superhero and as someone I'd want to see on a postage stamp. On the DC stamps they also used Supergirl, who I know wouldn't exist without Superman, but again, at least people know her. They didn't use but could have also made a Bat Girl stamp, also a better known character than either Spider Woman or Elektra.

Then lets look at the other players on the stamps. Most are fairly big names, well known guys until my eyes fell upon The Sub-Mariner. Who? This guy is a big super hero and deserves a stamp? Really? There was not one other Marvel hero they could have picked that someone who is not a comic geek would know? In this stamp contest DC wins hands down, and not just because my husband has a framed set of the DC heroes stamps over his dresser.

Cupcakes and 1/2 Birthdays

Ian's half birthday is tomorrow, so I made cupcakes to send into his class to celebrate. He requested my Snickerdoodle Cupcakes with Cinnamon Buttercream frosting, a real favorite at my house.

Last year I made him cupcakes frosted to look like baseballs and basketballs. This year he didn't ask for anything specific for decorations, so I decided to try and make lego bricks out of marshmallow fondant for the tops of the cupcakes. Ian loves legos, and it seemed like a "cool" third grade kind of decoration.


They turned out pretty well for my first time attempting fondant legos. From across the room, they look quite real. Get closer, and you can see that they are not very uniform. Ian was happy with them, though, so I am too. (Luckily Ian's class is small, so we have a few extra for dessert tonight!)

Save Your Toilet Paper Tubes

So both my girls were home sick yesterday. Zoe had a low grade fever and Emma had a nasty cough. But they were both playing together and having a lot of fun. As I finished straightening my hair in my bathroom I looked in the cabinet under my sink and decided it was time to clean a few things out. The easiest thing to get rid of that took up a lot of space was the 20 or so empty toilet paper and paper towel tubes I was saving for an art project with Emma's kindergarten class that never panned out.

Knowing my two girls would LOVE this treasure trove of garbage, I packed them into a bag and went into their room where they were playing cats. I asked if they would like the bag of tubes and they enthusiastically shouted, "Yes."

I went back to organizing when Emma burst into the bathroom with a toilet paper tube around a paper towel tube. She told me that if she squeezed the outer tube and moved it up and down, it made a neat sound, like and instrument. She then detailed for me how she was going to make a bunch of other instruments. She ran off happily thinking of all the things she could do with over 20 toilet paper tubes.


About a minute or two later she burst in again with a paper towel tube in hand, with one end covered in toilet paper. I suggested that if she used a rubber band the toilet paper would stay in place for her to create more. We couldn't find any rubber bands and decided that hair bands would work just as well.

Next thing I know Emma has drawn a face on her paper towel invention and declares that it is a boy. Zoe wants one, too, and so we wrap more toilet paper around another tube, but it has to be a girl, with long toilet paper hair this time. Emma forgets all about the musical instruments and makes several more toilet tube people, including a baby named Madeline by cutting a tube in half. She draws clothes and crowns on paper, cuts them out, and tapes them to her tube people. She even makes a tower for the princess to be stuck in, a TV, and various food and utensils to eat the food with.


I was both amazed and amused by all the creativity oozing out of my girls. Not only that, but this activity which involved very little of my help took up 1 1/2 to 2 hours of the morning. The girls were getting along wonderfully, and having a ball playing with their new "toys."

I guess I better get busy saving some other garbage for a rainy day, who knows what they'll do with it?

The Post in Which I Bitch

I am a SAHM. That's a Stay At Home Mom for the few people out there who don't know their acronyms. I have been a SAHM since June of 1999, when I finished my last year of teaching and waited for my first born to come in July. I have provided babysitting services to friends and neighbors at different times in the last 8 1/2 years of being home, but otherwise have not worked outside the home.

This year, after all those 8 1/2 years of having kids attached at the hip, hand, breast or ankle, I finally got two hours a week guaranteed to myself. The two oldest are in school full time, and my youngest started speech. Speech is twice a week for two one hour sessions. Fortunately the school where Zoe goes to speech is very close to both our home and shopping, so I fully take advantage of those two hours.

Early in the Fall of 2007, I fell into a pattern where I grocery shopped on the first speech day, and did other errands on the second speech day. I liked that I didn't have to grocery shop with any kids and got it done during the day (not at night or on the weekend). But as the year has progressed, I've been wanting a little more time to just enjoy myself, not to grocery shop or pay bills. So when our meal menu ended on a weekend (I make a weekly menu, then make a grocery list, it's the only way I can grocery shop efficiently and effectively!) I made a list and went shopping on a Saturday morning two Saturdays ago. I couldn't wait for the upcoming week because I knew I wouldn't have to stop at the grocery store and would have time to just shop for fun, or maybe even go to Starbucks for a latte (I received two gift cards for my Birthday and have not used them at all yet!) Well, I did the fun shopping on Tuesday. I went to Old Navy and found a great gift for my friend's baby shower in February. Then as I considered what I might do on Thursday (Starbucks here I come!!!!), my oldest came down with a fever. No lattes for me. Oh well, there's always next week, right? Wrong.

This week (which was the next week from above) has not panned out for me either. I did my grocery shopping over the weekend again, looking forward to another week of two hours to myself. As I eagerly awaited Tuesday morning, knowing I would get to drop Zoe at speech and go to return some items at Penney's and pay a bill, I knew Thursday would be free for some coffee goodness. Nope. Hasn't worked. Zoe woke up with a stomach ache and fever, and Emma has a horrendous cough. Which of course means that I will return my stuff to Penney's on Thursday, and there will be no lattes this week, either.

I know that one of these weeks it will pan out for me, but it hasn't yet. And I feel a bit guilty for complaining because I know the reason I stay home is so that I can take care of my kids, especially when they are sick, but all I want is a latte and 45 minutes with a good book once or twice a month. Is that too much to ask after 8 1/2 years of being home with my kids?

Dessert Preview

For Christmas this year one of my sister's kids had Zoe's name. So Leanne bought Zoe some cool things for her gift. There was a princess Barbie that could turn into a bride Barbie, two Strawberry Shortcake DVD's, and a Strawberry Shortcake Cookbook with three cookie cutters. Zoe immediately became enthralled with the cookbook, looking through each page and deciding whether or not she was going to make each dish. She corralled several of her aunts and her Grandma at various times during the party and made them look at the cookbook with her as she described how she would make each recipe with me.

Neither my sister or I knew what a hit this cookbook would be. The Barbie didn't get opened until our return to Illinois, but the cookbook was looked over several times before that (and since!).




So today we finally made our first recipe from the cookbook. It was called Pink Peppermint Pie. Zoe doesn't like peppermint ice cream, though, so we substituted vanilla with some red food coloring. Zoe scooped ice cream, squeezed food coloring and stirred the mixture together until the ice cream became smooth and pink. She then transferred the pink ice cream to the chocolate cookie crust we bought at the store and smoothed out the top almost all by herself. I unwrapped two cherry candy canes leftover from Christmas and she placed them on top of the cake to look like a heart, just like in the picture from the recipe. Our final touch was to add chocolate chips to the top, just for fun.

After determining that we better put the pie in the freezer or it would melt, Zoe cleaned the bowl of the leftover melted ice cream. Tonight after dinner we will enjoy Zoe's first dessert. I'm sure it will not be her last!

Frustrations With Weight

I spent all of 2006 overweight. Not a lot, but heavier than I had been my entire life (excepting my pregnancies, of course.) So when March of 2007 came around I finally decided to do something about it. I started being very careful of what I ate and when I ate. I picked up on my exercise a little bit (always a sporadic thing for me.) Over the course of six or seven months I had lost ten pounds and was at my goal weight.

After spending two months (give or take) at my desired weight, I was more than a little nervous for the upcoming holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas. I made it through Thanksgiving just fine and jumped into Christmas feet first. I made countless dozen cookies, made dessert for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and attended a cookie exchange with ten other women. I was so proud of myself for making it through the 25th of December with no change on the scale. And I ate desserts and cookies, but I was sensible and careful.

Then came my downfall. We loaded the kids into the van and went to Ohio for Christmas with my family. Because we are coming from so far away, we got there the night before (the 28th of December) and spent the night. Fine. But on the 29th, the day of the party, there was lots of good food. Not only did I bring my Christmas cookies that I continued to refill throughout the day, but there was all kinds of snacks left out to munch on. Good snacks. Chips and salsa. Fruit with chocolate dip. Cheese. Chocolates from the local ice cream store. Cocktail weinies (ok, I didn't eat these, but they were there.) I grazed much of the day. Then after dinner there was pie. Good pie. You get my drift.

And had we only been there for that one day, it probably would have been fine. But of course we stayed the night on the 29th (along with most of the rest of my family). My mom got up and made quiche, a tea ring, and had kringle. I of course had two pieces of tea ring (a cinnamon roll like creation) and some other good stuff. Then later in the day I had the last piece of pumpkin pie (mainly because the pecan pie was all gone already.)

When we finally packed up and went home, I knew I was going to be in trouble when I stepped on the scale again. And sure enough, I had added 2-3 pounds. The worst part as that I didn't fix my eating when I got home. I kept indulging, more than I should have. I finally stopped when the scale tipped four pounds more than my "happy" weight.

What was I doing? It had taken me six months to lose ten pounds and I was ruining it in the span of ten days! So now I am two pounds over and still struggling. I really want it to go away, but know that I have to put in the hard work to get rid of the extra pounds. I plan on doing it; I am not going back to being ten pounds overweight. But it still sucks.

The Blessings Of Saying "No"

I say "no" a lot. I say it to my kids, I say it to myself, I say it to my kids some more. I've never been afraid to say it, although I must admit I sometimes fear the possible reaction my kids will give me. Sometimes I get, "Why not?" with a defiant chin stuck out after I say ,"No." Other times it's a plaintive and high pitched, "Pleeeeeeeeease?" And still other times it is just a grumpy huff and nasty look sent my way. But I have to admit, most of the time the reaction from my kids is a calm "Okay," like they didn't expect me to say yes anyways, but they had to at least try.

I got to thinking about this last reaction today as I left the "Explorer Store" at the DuPage Children's Museum with Zoe today. We were getting ready to leave and she asked if we could go into the store. I told her that we couldn't buy anything, and she said she knew that. So we went in and looked around a little bit. She asked if I would get her a giant bubble wand, I said, "No," and she moved onto looking at the magnetic pizza. We left and she walked right out of the store without any problem.

Her behavior (and mine) got me to thinking that my kids and lots of others are lucky to have people in their life who say "No." I do it for four main reasons.

1. Because my kids already have plenty of stuff and they don't need more
2. Because they will never learn the value of money, saving money, and earning money as well as the value of a purchase they make by saving their own moneyhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
3. Because possessions are not what makes a person truly happy
4. Because we are on a tight budget

But truly I never thought about how lucky kids are that have parents who say no to them. I know that it seems like my kids are the only ones who don't get an overpriced plastic souvenir at Disney on Ice productions. I know how my kids don't wear name brand clothing (and they're not old enough yet to really care or be aware of this yet). I know how my husband and I make choices that my kids will never know about, sacrifices that allow them to go to Catholic school, to have Christmas presents under the tree, to have birthday presents that they love, to have a mother who stays home with them. My kids have noticed that we don't go to McDonald's very much anymore, that we eat almost all of our meals at home. But, that makes going to McDonald's even more special when we do.

I know that I would rather have the life I have now, with a loving husband and hand-me-down clothes for the girls, dinner at home every night, and an anniversary dinner at Giordano's instead of some expensive restaurant over a possession filled, iPhone and big screen TV kind of life. That to me isn't nearly as fulfilling as having to say "No" sometimes.

Football Game of the Week

Forget the playoffs in the Pro's (no one you really want to watch anyways!) - the real action is tonight.

Go Buckeyes!

Christmas Desserts

I was pressed into service once again for two desserts and one side dish for Christmas Eve and Christmas day dinners. Usually around this time of year I have visions of very fancy desserts, often involving lots of cream cheese, heavy whipping cream, and chocolate of some sort. But this year was different. I have been simplifying a lot during the Christmas season this year, meaning a few less presents for the kids, a lot less late night shopping trips, and not spending hours at Allrecipes.com looking for the most amazing and time consuming dessert recipe.

So here I present the two desserts we had this year, the Boston Cream Pie was for Christmas Eve and the Ice Cream Cake was for Christmas day.


You can find the recipe for this Boston Cream Pie here. It was a really great way to end Christmas Eve dinner.


This is my award winning (fourth place) recipe for Cookie Ice Cream Cake. Instead of vanilla and chocolate ice cream I used chocolate and peppermint. It tasted great and got lots of compliments.

I hope your Christmas desserts were delicious, too.

May Qualify Him For Uncle Of The Year

I have a brother-in-law who has many talents. He is a twice nominated Jeff actor (fifth down on the list) can do magic tricks, ride a unicycle and juggle, and he can knit, to name just a few of his many skills.

In past years we have been on the receiving end of his knitting flair. One Christmas my son received a hat, my middle daughter got a matching hat and scarf (now being utilized by my youngest daughter, who wasn't around yet at this particular Christmas), my husband (brother of the brother-in-law being presently discussed) got a scarf (and maybe a hat, not sure) and I received a beautiful scarf as well. All of these items were hand knit with love by my brother-in-law, Kevin.

Now, fast forward about four or five years. My youngest daughter requested a baby Elmo for Christmas. I wasn't sure what she meant, as I hadn't seen any in stores. Neither did Kevin. However, creative to a fault Kevin decided he would not allow my baby to go without her heart's desire, a baby Elmo.

The man knitted a diaper and baby bonnet for an Elmo he bought and gave it to Zoe. It is unbelievably cute, and obviously very unique. Zoe loves it, and so do I.


Take a look for yourself. If this doesn't qualify Kevin for Uncle of the Year, I don't know what does.

Christmas Tradition

When my first child was born back in 1999, My husband and I decided it would be neat to get him a new ornament each year to hang on the Christmas tree. When he was little, we picked out the ornament for him. As he's gotten older and two sisters have come along, we've continued this tradition with each child. Now, however, the children pick out their own ornaments each year. We take a trip to some store and everyone chooses something they like. Then on the way home we look at Christmas lights in different neighborhoods.

The plan is that when each kid is old enough and moves out on their own, they'll have their own set of ornaments to hang on their Christmas tree. Seems like a good idea, doesn't it?

Yeah, it did to us, too. But I can't help thinking that when my daughters are 17 they are going to ask us why we ever let them pick out the ornaments they did. And when my son gets engaged or married, his fiancee or wife is going to ask us how we could stand so many Star Wars/ Superhero/ train ornaments on one tree. I'm always hopeful when one of my kids pick up a pretty little nativity ornament or a traditional glass bulb. Then reality sinks in when their eyes spy a bright, glittery, enormous blue star, or a white glass cat with feathery tail, a BIG pink glass girl carrying a basket of flowers, or an ornament with R2-D2 and a jawa. I can't say no when I see that big smile look up at me with their special ornament in hand, and we come home and add one more "fancy" ornament to our tree.





It's a fun tradition, but our tree will never be the same again.

Here is our newest addition (can you guess which darling picked this one out?):

The 12 Days Of Christmas As You've Never Heard It Before

I was going to blog about some of my favorite Christmas songs, some of the all time greats that make my list of best Christmas tunes of all time. But, instead I found this, one of only two versions of The Twelve Days of Christmas that I enjoy. (The other version being the John Denver/ Muppet ode.)

A Visit With Santa

Today during speech class Zoe got to see Santa in the library of the Early Child Learning Center where she attends. I didn't know they were going to see Santa, but apparently Zoe was very excited about it. When I picked her up she held up two mini candy-canes and loudly exclaimed, "I saw Santa in the library and I told him I wanted a new monkey and he gave me these!"

I was excited for her. She was genuinely thrilled with her little meeting. She continued to tell me, "I never saw Santa before, but now I did."

I think it's great. Except for one thing. "Santa" has already finished all of the toy shopping for this year and there is no monkey among the loot. In fact, this is the first I have heard of a "new monkey" this whole season. I don't know if "Santa" is going to have to go back into his "toyshop" or not. I guess we'll see Christmas morning.

Christmas Cookies

This weekend was a Christmas cookie weekend. The kids and I made our annual sugar cookie cut-outs, which are always a big hit. Emma, Zoe and I cut out all the cookies with our cookie cutters while their big brother played in the snow with the neighbor boy. Their were angels, snowmen, crosses, reindeer, stockings, Santa Clauses, holly, wreaths, and probably a few other shapes as well.

We used Pillsbury sugar cookie dough sheets (two packs) to make our many cookies. They worked really nicely (although I can't find a picture to post of the packaging.) What was really nice was that it came with two dough sheets ready to be cut right from the refrigerator. After we used the sheets as they came, I took all the scraps and re-rolled them so we got lots of cookies. The packages also come with red and green frosting packs, which made for a nice variety of colors when decorating since I bought vanilla (white frosting,) too. The only problem I have with the dough sheets is that they are hard to find. None of my local grocery stores carry them except Meijer. all the other stores carry the ones with the shape picture inside it. Those are not nearly as fun as making your own shapes and decorating them yourselves, in my opinion.


But I digress. Once Ian was back indoors and all the cookies had cooled we began he frosting and decorating tasks. I frosted each cookie and passed them onto my decorators who were stocked with colored sugars, mini M&M's, cinnamon imperials (or as Zoe likes to call them, "hot reds"), and a large variety of sprinkles. The decorators took their job seriously and made sure that not one cookie came out without some form of sugar adornment.


The final results were not only creative and beautiful, but delicious as well. (We are currently rationing the sugar cookies in an effort to get them to last until Christmas.)

My Little Craft Princess

I have a five year old daughter. She has two passions in life, princesses and artsy craftsy stuff. If it can be cut, glued, glittered, or colored, Emma is all over it.

Here are some pictures of her hard at work doing what she does best, creating masterpieces out of the junk materials I pull out of my craft boxes.


She is working on a paper plate angel because I cut way too many for the kindergarten craft.


Adding more sparkle. A young girl can never have enough sequins and sparkles.


A little break to hug the cat.


And back to work!

With Visions of Sugarplums . . .

Here is my youngest asleep on the family room floor this afternoon. I know it's a bit early for Christmas dreaming, but what else could make my baby have such an angelic face while sleeping?

They Really Know How to Celebrate Christmas in Europe

Received this link from a friend and enjoyed it. Turn up the volume to make sure you don't miss anything. Germany is definitely my favorite, though Switzerland was a close second.

Christmas Craft with Kindergartners

I went into Emma's kindergarten class this afternoon to teach art. The parochial school where Ian and Emma attend does not have an art teacher on staff, so the teacher is responsible for weekly art. I volunteered to teach art once a month to the kindergartners to give Emma's teacher a break and to let myself play "teacher" for a little bit each month.

Today's project was paper plate angels. I asked them if they knew of any angels that were involved in Jesus' birth. They told me about the angel Gabriel as well as the angel who told the shepherds about Jesus' birth. (They're a smart bunch!) I told them that we would make our own angels today out of paper plates. I showed them one I had made and they were all very eager to get started.


I pre-cut all the plates because kindergartners and scissors do not usually result in precise cutting, which this project required. I passed out the plates and after writing their names on them, they got started coloring and drawing. More than one boy asked if he could make a mean face on the angel. I told them, "No, this is a Christmas angel, he or she needs to look happy." However, when the same boys asked if they could make their angel bald or with spiky hair, I told them, "Sure, it's your angel."

It's amazing the difference between kids in a class. Some kids were done drawing after about two minutes, ready to move on to the next step, while others were still coloring when it was time to do the last step.

Now, if you've never been in a class of 22 kindergartners doing an art project, you might be amazed at the noise level. Kids all over the room asking me if I liked their angel, comparing what they are doing with the kid next to them, or even across the room from them. It is controlled chaos. But, it's fun.

What really made it difficult for me today was that there were three distinct steps that I had to help with, as well as having Zoe, my three year old daughter with me. Usually she just colors or eats a snack, but today she wanted to make the angel and therefore wanted a little bit more of my attention than usual. Couple that with the taping and passing out of yarn to 22 five and six year olds makes for a slightly stressful situation. At one point, while I was taping each child's yarn onto the underside of their angel, Zoe came over with her angel and wanted me to do the same. I told her she would have to wait a little bit. She looked distressed, but didn't say anything and just held onto my leg. That's when the sweetest thing happened. Lucas, a little boy in Emma's class, told me he could wait until after Zoe had her angel taped. I'm often amazed at the sweetness of little kids. It always humbles me and makes me happy that I'm taking the time to do this every month.

After the angels were done, several of the kids helped me pick up the extra sequins that they had been gluing onto their angels to make it pretty. Another neat thing about this help is that two of the helpers were little boys who are known to be troublemakers. It made me really happy to see their generous spirit come out. It also reminded me that no matter how difficult and little self control some kids have, they still are sweet little kids who want to do the right thing and like being recognized for their good behavior. It's amazing how much a pat on the back can encourage more good behavior.

After I cleaned the tables so the students could have their snack, Zoe and I left amid a chorus of "Thank you, Mrs. McKillip" and "Goodbye, Mrs. McKillip." It was fun. I can't wait to make paper plate snowmen in January.

Weekend Christmas Fun

The girls and I decided to make a gingerbread Christmas tree this weekend using a Wilton Cookie Cutter Kit and Betty Crocker gingerbread cookie mix.

The gingerbread cookie mix worked awesome, although I didn't have quite enough to make two of every size cookie, so I only made one of the two largest size stars. The girls helped me cut the cookies out and mix the frosting after the cookies were cooled. We made royal frosting and I applied it to all the cookies and stacked them one by one. After that Emma and Zoe added mini M&M's for ornaments and I added the yellow star and white snow frosting details.


The tree ended up a little lopsided, but we had so much fun making it that I think we might make this a yearly tradition. We are going to eat it for dessert tonight after dinner, and I know everyone is looking forward to that.

Christmas Classics

One of the perks of being a parent is being around your children as they sing Christmas songs over and over again. My five year old daughter is always singing one song or another. Lately they are mostly songs from her upcoming Christmas concert that they are practicing for on a daily basis in school. But she also shares with me her versions of Jingle Bells, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and my personal favorite, Deck the Halls.

The real perk, of course, is not in hearing their little voices all the time, but in the way they mangle the lines of songs. Emma's most recent rendition of Deck the Halls went something like this:

"Tis' the season to be jolly.
Fa La La La La La La La La.
Santa Claus is out of Holly.
Fa La La La La La La La La."

I told her it was really "Deck the halls with boughs of holly," but she wouldn't believe me! She told me she heard it, and it said, "Santa Claus is out of holly."

I may sing it that way for the rest of the season this year.

Snowy Day Fun

The first big snow of the season fell last night and by morning the yard was under about six inches of snow. After my kids oohed and aahed at the pretty snow, they hatched their plans for playing in the snow. My oldest was not happy that school was still in session. He stuck out his chin and defiantly told me he was going to play in the snow after school. Take that mom!

So, at around 3:00PM, Zoe and I ventured down to the basement to pull out our snow pants. I was a little worried as I pulled two pairs if snow pants and one snowsuit out of the bin they were being stored in. Ian's pair was a size 10/12. Perfect I thought. But Emma's pair (an old black set from Ian) was a 5. She currently wears a 6. Zoe's snowsuit was a size 4T. She is in 4's and 5's. I figured we could make do for today and buy new ones if need be. But, at 3:15 when Emma and Ian got home from school and tried on their snow pants, everything fit. After some snacks and a change out of their school clothes we all suited up for some fun in the snow.

It was pretty chilly outside, but of course the three of them didn't notice it at all. They just knew they were free to dig, roll around in, and throw snow any way they could. Ian brought one of his Bionicles out and played with the neighbor boys while the girls looked for ice blocks in the snow to make a big pile with.

Emma got cold first and came in for a nice hot mug of cocoa. I enticed Zoe in with the promise of hot chocolate as well, and Ian finally came in when his hands couldn't stand the cold anymore. All in all, a successful first play in the snow day.

Yum! Doughnuts!

We received the Williams-Sonoma catalog (along with a dizzying array of other catalogs) in the mail yesterday. So, after the kiddos went to bed I discarded the several catalogs I was uninterested in into the recycling bin, but sat down to take a look at the Williams-Sonoma catalog. There is always a great selection of yummy foods, fun gadgets and amazing things to use in the kitchen. I came to the fun holiday baking and kids section where I happened upon what may be the most perfect gift for my family: The Mini Doughnut Maker.


The description says, "Making seven little [cake] doughnuts is as easy as pouring batter into the wells of the machine and closing the lid."

And they are then griddle baked and not fried in oil. Oh my goodness, could it really be true? I'd love to find out.

Oh Yeah!

Ohio State is officially ranked number one! It is amazing to see them go to the BCS Championship bowl on January 7. We will all be wearing our Buckeye Scarlet rooting for the Best Damn Team in the Land! (By the way, what's with the official BCS page having a picture of an LSU player there? They're number two!)


After the devastating loss to the Illini, I was just pleased that the Buck's crushed Michigan and were headed to the Rose Bowl. Now there's even more at stake and I guess I'll have to ask my sister how to make those peanut butter buckeyes she makes so well.

On a side note, I'm really genuinely pleased to see 13th ranked Illinois make the Rose Bowl. They deserve to go and I hope they beat the tar out of USC.