Christmas Day

One Christmas tradition that, my father thinks was started by my late Uncle "Ole' C", an Episcopal Priest, is savoring the moments of Christmas. For as long as I remember, we don't divide all of the presents up by recipient and then rip everything open in 10 minutes time. No, from stockings to gifts under the tree each present is opened one by one, savored, properly thanked and appreciated, and often even opened and played with between gifts. Gifts aren't purchased for volume so the kids have more for ripping, they are carefully chosen, and each year we have bought fewer and fewer. It does make for a long day all together, taking breaks to play with toys, or eat together, but we love it.

Here is Victor opening a gift with nephew Spencer looking on.

Opening gifts for Spencer this year entailed trying to cram the entire box in his mouth -- of course. Tanya was happiest when he was opening one of our gifts wrapped with homemade gift bags made of fabric! (More on that later in another post!)

Reese, Rosalie, Spencer and Ripley

How cute is this?

Christmas Festivities

Sorry to have been away from you all for so long ... there is so much to catch up with.

For now, I will let you enjoy the pictures of our Christmas Eve Festivities

at Dave and Sue's house. Here is the infamous "kids table".

l-r: Ripley, Orion, Rosalie, Elliana, A.J., Reese and Dylan


I could dedicate an entire blog to my niece Rosalie.

Seriously, isn't she fabulous?
A little pre-Christmas opening chaos.

Tanya (our resident actress) and Scott did a reading along with gestures, expressions and a little movement of the play The Gift of the Magi.

Tanya: as Della
Scott: as Jim

My nephew Spencer, suited as Santa.

Victor, reclining and twinkling.

Gramp contemplating chess with Benjamin at our house, two nights before Christmas.

Ripley's Montessori School

On Friday, Ripley's Montessori School had a "Holiday" Celebration. The best part of the whole event was that parents were allowed to go into the classrooms and "work" along side their children. Every time I go to his school I'm amazed and inspired by the clever tools they use to teach the students. Of course, when I arrived, Ripley was busily working away on this puzzle -- which we have at home! He can do the entire thing without help and knows a lot of the states by name.


This is such a clever idea. It's thick clay inside a wooden box. Kids hammer "nails" - or golf tees - into the clay.

The infamous Tower Cubes and Brown Stairs. This is another child's work, but I took a picture of it because it's Ripley's favorite. For days on end when I asked him what he did at school he told me that he worked with the Tower Cubes and the Brown Stairs, to the point where it became a joke between us. "You worked with them again?!" I'd exclaim. "No, I'm just teasing you." Ripley would say.

I loved this work. The little basket of items (basket #6) coordinate with these wooden sandpaper letter cards (kept in slot #6). Each item is put next to the letter the word begins with. So, as you can see kaleidoscope, kangaroo and koala are placed at the top of the letter K. Jet, jack-o-lantern, jeep and jack-in-the-box are placed at the top of the letter J. Isn't that fabulous?! It would be so simple to make these projects at home. (Incidentally, sandpaper letters are used as a work. The children practice tracing the letters with the texture underneath their fingers.)

Here is their snack area. Only two children can be in the snack area "snacking". To indicate the they are taking their turn, they put on a little bell necklace that hangs around one of the two chairs at the small snack table. They are responsible for pouring their own juice or milk, and often times have to count out how many pretzels or crackers they can have. The chalk board will read for example "4 Pretzels" along with 4 individually drawn pretzels along side. Isn't that fabulous? Teaching them Independence, gross motor skills and counting all at the same time!

This is a small little thing that I saw just as we were getting ready to leave. I took a picture of it because I thought it was so clever and adorable. All of the various "works" sit simply and organized on shelves that are eye level for the children. Here is a miniature Christmas Tree and a basket that is full of little decorations. Cute?! Is it not?

Winter Wonderland

The story of a quest for the perfect chocolate cupcake!

Chocolate and Yellow Cake Recipes, For Kristi.

When my parents lived out on Cape Cod in Osterville several years ago we, "the kids" and "the grandchild" (Benjamin), would load up our cars and go there for the weekend, because with traffic, it was a far trip to travel for the afternoon. Awaiting us was always a box of four of the most gorgeous jumbo chocolate cupcakes with white frosting you've ever seen, that Mom had bought at Fancy's. They were so enormous that we were content to lop off a quarter of one for a decadent snack. When Mom didn't have time to get them, or --tragedy -- they were out, she would apologize first thing after our arrival.

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So of course, I said to myself -- "We can make these!" And thus began our quest. I tried several recipes for both the cake and the frosting. Although the original frosting was boiled (my mother was gutsy enough to ask the owner -- "Soooooo . . . how do you make that frosting of yours, hmmm?" with a twinkle in her eye. ), we are all very happy with the final result of the following recipe.

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This recipe is also the standard recipe I use for Birthday Cakes -- When trying to find some pictures of my cakes I came to realize that when you are presenting a cake and singing "Happy Birthday" it can make for some very unfortunate photos . . .

See what I mean? It's a cake plie move! You can't see this cake well (somewhere I have a close-up) but it's frosted to look like a baseball -- for my little sportsman, Ripley.

How about this gem? I think I'm in the middle of singing "Tooooo" or "Yooouuuu".

I'm not sure, but it's pretty frightening.

This one just makes me laugh.

The Recipe - Chocolate Cake

Butter and lightly flour two 9 inch round cake pans -- or get your cupcake pans ready!

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

• 4 oz unsweetened chocolate
• 1/2 lb butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoons salt
• 1 cup milk
• 4 eggs
  

Melt the chocolate and butter together in a bowl or pot over simmering water; stir in the vanilla. Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl. Add the chocolate mixture, the milk, and the eggs and beat until smooth. Spread in the pan and bake for about 30-35 minutes (large "Texas" cupcakes take 20 minutes). Cool in the pans for 5 minutes before turning out onto racks. **Don't overcook, err on the side of underdone, rather than over done.**

The FROSTING:

• 1 C butter
• 1 t almond extract
• 1/2 t vanilla extract
• 1 box confectioners sugar
• 1 dash salt
• 1/4 C milk

Yumola! As the owner of Fancy's said when my mom was pumping him for information, the quality of the ingredients are extremely important. As the old saying goes: Garbage in, Garbage out.

Now the best yellow cake and chocolate frosting I ever made was random. It actually came off the bottom of the label that came with my fancy new cake pans several years ago. No foolin'. The chocolate frosting in particular is no-fail and phenomenal.

Classic Yellow Cake:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 8" round cake pans.

• 3 1/2 C flour
• 1 T baking powder
• 3/4 t salt
• 1 3/4 C milk, room temp.
• 1 T vanilla extract
• 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp.
• 2 C sugar
• 4 eggs, room temp.

Mix dry ingredients together, set aside. Mix milk and vanilla together, set aside. Beat butter until smooth. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Reduce mixer speed to low, add flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the milk mixture and beginning and ending with the flour. Beat each addition until just incorporated, occasionally stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Spoon batter into pans and cook 25 to 30 minutes.

Chocolate Frosting:

• 8 oz. unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped (better quality the chocolate, better the frosting).
• 1 1/3 C unsalted butter, room temp.
• 3 cups confectioners sugar

Melt chocolate in a double boiler set over simmering water. Let cool to room temperature. With a mixer, beat the butter until smooth, about 30 seconds. Add the confectioners' sugar and beat until smooth, creamy and slightly fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in the melted chocolate, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl to evenly distribute the chocolate. Yum. Yum. Yum.

Joy

At some point during dinner last night, Victor started teasing Benjamin and me. You see, Victor and Ripley are two guys made out of the same mold. They know how to chill. And chill. And chill. Benjamin and I can do a half hour of chillin' before we start to go bonkers and invent for ourselves a project. Midway through chicken soup last night, Benjamin says that he'd like to make blankets and pillows to sell in his classroom for their "Pay Pals". I should mention that this weekend, I taught Benjamin how to use my sewing machine -- which he thought was fabulous! The funny thing is, Benjamin was asking this after he'd finished his homework, we were sitting down to dinner, AND it was 7:15pm at night! He looked at me with those excited "PROJECT" eyes and knew I was in.

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What are Pay Pals you ask? Good question. I didn't know either. Basically, you earn points by doing your homework. After you reach a certain number of points, you earn a Pay Pal, which is a Beanie Baby. Then the children proceed to make things to sell to their classmates' Pay Pals. Money (popsicle sticks) is earned by doing homework. So, basically, we hurriedly made blankets and pillows for little beanie babies to earn a handful of popsicle sticks. Truly, I think it's a fabulous concept. And it seems the kids are really into it. Benjamin at one point explained to me that everyone "plays" with their Pay Pal during snack time. Benjamin said "EVERYTHING happens at snack." What a riot.

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I had some old fleece hanging around that I can't for the life of me dig up in my mind what I'd purchased for. On sale in the remnants section probably. Well, it came in handy. We made a pattern out of an old roll of paper towel hiding in my craft room. Benjamin pinned the paper towel pattern to the fleece and cut out three blankets with pinking sheers.

We cut out three rectangles for the pillows. Benjamin gave a whole hearted try sewing the pillows up on the machine, but the material was extremely stretchy and I finally had to come to his rescue.

Benjamin was in charge of stuffing the pillows and stitching up the last side by hand.

We had the opportunity to talk about the importance of presentation when marketing anything. So we bundled each pillow and blanket together with a piece of unused yarn I had hanging around.

Aren't they adorable? I'm not sure who had more fun, Benjamin or me. Joy.

Wonderful Weekend

To me, this weekend was perfection. We were all together, working outside all bundled up in 20 degree weather, interspersed with great food. We started out our day with pancakes -- a recipe given to me by my Aunt Janie and one Victor and I have recently decided (after much tasting) is the best there is. Then we went outdoors to tackle my wood inventory. Our wood burning stove insert is new to us, so we weren't busily squirreling away wood all summer and fall. It was past time to get busy.

Thankfully, in our back woods there are countless -- who knows how many years worth -- standing dead and fallen trees that are all ready "seasoned". Victor cut and chopped and the kids and I carried and stacked. Mid-day, we had an outdoor hot chocolate break with marshmallows. For lunch we took a break and had chicken soup and corn bread that I had stashed away in the freezer. We went back at it after lunch and worked until the sun was low on the horizon. I made egg rolls and fried rice with eggs and beef from a nearby farm, and sweet peppers, cayenne peppers, broccoli and carrots from our garden. How wonderful. We ate our feast while watching A Christmas Story.

On Sunday, after church, the boys were back outside.

Benjamin was very excited to learn how to split wood.

Last count was six logs that he'd split by himself -- and proud!

Benjamin and Ripley take a "play" break from work -- which left to their own devices outside usually includes mud, dirt and water. (Notice Benjamin's knees -- yep, that's my boy.)

Our progress.

Isn't my Siberian Kale gorgeous in the sunlight?

Here is my Arugula, making progress and looking cozy in the closed cold frame.

Mesclun Mix Greens churning away and getting big.

Kids are Funny, Mommies are Silly

Last night for dinner we had Butternut Squash Soup and Greens (from our garden of course ... still kicking in spite of the snowfall last week) that I cooked the good ole' southern way, with ham hocks. It wasn't my family's favorite meal, but they ate up anyway. (I purchased 2 bushels of local butternut squash, so I'm currently playing a game with myself -- How to Cook Butternut Squash in 1,000 Different Ways). After our dinner, sitting down at the table with candles, conversation and even a back rubbing competition -- we started with the bedtime routine. Kids were tucked in and snoring away by 8pm.

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So, imagine my surprise when at 12:10am Benjamin (9) comes wandering into our room and says "Mommy, I'm hungry!" Groggy and stunned with disbelief I say "You've got to be kidding Benjamin, it's midnight." (Benjamin went through a stage where he'd wake up in the middle of the night and come into our room to make some obscure observation, which wouldn't be a huge deal, but sometimes I struggle to go back to sleep once my mind gets going.) "No, really. My stomach is hurting I'm so hungry." Finally it starts to register in my mind. We didn't have any meat, dairy or grains for dinner and Benjamin had swim team practice that afternoon. Poor guy. He was hungry. "Uhhh, (trying to think, while still half sleeping) let's see, how 'bout the crackers that are still on the kitchen counter." "OK" and Benjamin leaves.

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While I'm typing this, I can't help but be reminded that there are so many children and adults alike around the world and even in the United States, with the economic downturn we've been going through, who are going hungry. Now is certainly not the time to go overeating while others are going hungry and food banks are at all time lows -- when people need them the most. Save money with portion control (I recently switched to breakfast plates for dinners) and if you can, give to your local food bank. A lot of people actually buy something for the poor every time they go to the grocery store. Somehow, on a regular basis, I always forget until I walk by the food bank drop off near the exit of the grocery store. But, yesterday I remembered. I'm going to try to remember from now on. Really, it's an easy one. When we shop for food, we should be thankful that we can afford it, be good stewards of what's been given to us, and remember those who can't afford to eat three meals a day. For you local folks, Crossroads RI does a great job helping the homeless and the poor. There are all kinds of ways to help out -- and they are in need now, more than ever. Be well. Be thankful.

Free Christmas Decorations and other news

I love decorating for Christmas. To me, it creates a festive mood and reminds me what Christmas is all about. Now, most of you probably whip out the same things every year like I do. Well stored and taken care of, these things can last for generations. One thing that my mother taught me is to decorate with evergreen clippings from the yard. If you are fortunate enough to live in an area where things such as pine trees, hollies and boxwood's grow -- PRESTO, you have free lovely Christmas decorations! Boxwood's and hollies in particular need to be trimmed from time to time, so wait until December to give them a "haircut".

Gather several different pieces of greens and tie them together with ribbon. Then, tie the ribbon around light fixtures (being careful to stay away from the light bulbs of course). Anytime I receive a gift with ribbon, I horde them and save them for decorations and presents. I put the "decor ribbons" back in my Christmas storage boxes and reuse over and over again. Some of the ribbons pictured here are over 15 years old!
Take some greens and put them into a vase with a ribbon around it.


Someone gave me this sleigh one year. So, every year I wheel it out and use it in some way. This year I decided to put some greens into it. In the background is a plate I made in school in 1974 (yes, I'm dating myself). The funniest thing about the picture is that if you look closely you'll see that Santa's mustache is actually above his nose! Judging from the picture you would never have guessed that I'd go on to be an art major -- would you?

This is a shot of the greens I tied to the light fixture in our 1/2 bathroom downstairs. As an aside, you can see that the walls of our bathroom are lined with pictures. Most of the pictures are framed collage Christmas cards that I've made over the years. So, it shows our family over the years. I love to look at them and so do our guests. One place we all have to visit is the "washroom".

We have a sliding glass door in the back of our house. It looks out to our backyard which is mostly woods. I filled this little planter with evergreens and threw a bow on it. Now when we look out of our window, we see a little bit of Christmas.

For all of you mom's with young children out there -- I just have to tell you about this great little learning tool I purchased from Up With Learning for Ripley's birthday. Although it's an exercise in vinyl and plastic, as a learning tool, it's terrific.

First, Ripley pics a card that has pictures and corresponding words written underneath them. Then, he pics out the vowels (red blocks) and consonants (blue blocks) to spell the word. Finally, he writes out the word for himself. What a great invention. You could certainly try to create your own version with word cards, scrabble pieces and good ole' lined paper. It is from Learning Resources and is called a Phonics Activity Set.

Thanks to Rhonda from Down to Earth for posting the recipe for this Orange Coconut Cake. The frosting (not pictured) didn't come out like hers, I messed it up somehow, but the cake was fabulous. So moist!! Get the recipe HERE.

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I'll leave you with this funny story. For our date night yesterday (an expense and investment I hope we will be able to continue to afford during these trying times) Victor and I decided to fly by the seat of our pants (rather than sticking to our old stand-bys) and head up "to the hill" or rather Federal Hill which is the Italian district here in Providence. Like Boston there is a main drag of restaurants that offer everything from Jamaican to Chinese to nouveau Italian to your traditional Italian cuisine. Mostly it's the later two that fill the main street, Atwells Ave. We were feeling indecisive because usually, I do a little research and know right where we are going. Finally, Victor pulled the car over and parked on a side street. Let me add here that it was pouring down rain. I, in my cute little date night outfit, begrudgingly schlepped (without umbrella) over to Atwells. We walked up and down a few times (with a quick stop at the Providence Oyster Bar for a glass of wine and a few oysters to think things over) and finally landed on one of the very traditional Italian restaurants. A relatively small restaurant, it was like walking into a gathering spot for the local mafia and their families. It was authentic. It was colorful. It was fabulous. You would never know that there was a recession going on and that Rhode Island is tied with Michigan for the highest unemployment rate in the country. The restaurants were jammed. We ended up sitting at the bar rather than wait for a table. Our bartender was this colorful, rather full bodied Italian woman with dark black dyed hair. Her persona borderlined on Seinfeld's Soup Nazi, but if you charmed her in just the right way she was like putty in your hands. The woman sitting next to us with her boyfriend reminded me of Reese Witherspoon and was at least as thin. Our waitress commented when "Reese" pushed aside the large bowl of dressing that came with her Cesar salad and requested olive oil, that it was no wonder she was so thin. (That's all that Reese ordered, by the way.) I, sized 2 woman that I am, ordered a braised Rabe appetizer with garlic, black olives and roasted red peppers AND the lasagna which turned out to be the size of most plates. Our bartendress commented that it was fabulous -- like you made it at home. And it was. I managed to eat all but a one square inch piece. Our ample bartendress commented "Wow! You ate all that?" Um, yes. It was incredible. Thank you. (blush)

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