This post was written and accidentally deleted a few days ago and I had already spent TOO much time on it and couldn't bring myself to do it again. But after a few days to cool off, here it is.
Yesterday I got up early and went exercising. Which because exercising is way more about mental health and energy than weight for me, I decided I'd spend the rest of the morning snatching cookie dough and "sampling" melted chocolate.
For weeks now I've been reading Facebook statuses about Christmas baking. And I finally figured, sure we'll get out the mixing bowls and have some fun.
And it was fun.
As far as any viable baking goods? Not so much. But it was fun.
Check out these lovlies. I've made these lots, but this time they just did not turn out (I might need new pans, at least I'll blame it on that:)
Oh well the dough was tasty. At one point I decided to cut my losses, threw the dough in the fridge and will just enjoy them one spoonful at time a instead of making more "burnt offerings" to my oven.
Really how much do you expect from the girl who went in the fridge to get eggs and found this:
Those ice cubes might take awhile, Chels.
Then again. We still got the important parts of baking.
Like batter on a beater...is there anything better?!?
Maybe chocolate off a wooden spoon....
Yes-ser ree we had fun making the cookies.
And there's still the Soft Molasses one's that needed refrigerated, I still have high hopes for them.
(PS because I'm writing this in retrospect I bring you news from the future...I went and bought new pans, and parchment paper, determined to have a baking success...they aren't awful, but not my best. And I still totally burnt the last batch because I apparently have no attention span for baking whatsoever! and got way distracted organizing kitchen drawers while I listened to this awesome mormon radio program which I'd write a whole post about but it's hard when there's no transcripts and I don't wanna quote wrong, so just listen to it, it had so many good points and motivated me through all my much needed kitchen drawer de-cluttering) While I did this...
They did this....
it was worse before they ate the popcorn all afternoon.
And the drawer would be more impressive with a before shot too.
Order and Chaos: The battle rages on.
But I digress. The point: I still stink at baking.
However, I can take fun pictures of our attempts:)
I did have a little more luck with our non-bake treat.
I make this white chocolate, nuts and cranberries stuff...see it needed a name. SO I asked ben the first year I made it what it should be called.
He thought and then declared: "Christmas Love!"
I thought it was pretty cute, so that's what I call it.
So this year I kept asking Ben, "When are we making Christmas love?"
Ben kept laughing at me, until finally he clued me in that any form of "love making" was probably not the best idea for a family activity.
Ha ha Benny.
I did need wax paper. I have a friend that lives really close and man is it handy! There's many super-time texts requesting forgotten ingredients. So just as I'm texting her to ask if she has some wax paper my phone signals an incoming text:
I thought it was so funny. She was replacing brown sugar that a few nights before her kid had watched me completely ransack my kitchen for (see it needed organizing!), while I kept reassuring him, "I KNOW I have some! I know I do...somewhere!
Oh so yummy and pretty too.
(On my new fancy trays that I got on my last minute Great Falls girls trip...post to come!)
I chuckled at my clever cookbook pun.
Levi "helped"the whole time. Pulling out everything he could form allt he cupboards, underfoot the whole time. By the end we'd made quite the mess.
But I decided to leave it all, included the pile of burnt cookies on the counter and go run some errands.
I've decided hats are the short-haired girl's "ponytail". Although once you take them off its pretty darn scary.
We'd finished up our errands and I was thinking of the clean-up awaiting me at home, when McKye saw and playground and called out, "wanna go park!" Probably because I was so eager to get washing I thought, "Sure. Why not!" I figured my kids were probably feeling about as desperate for a bit of exercise as I have been lately. We weren't really prepared for a romp in the snow, so I gathered up a bunch of random socks from all over the van and put them on my kids for mittens (why we had so many socks floating around and no mittens....???) and released my children from their carseats into the glorious snow for some wintry fun.
Less than a minute in, McKye had already slipped (playground equipment offers absolutely no traction in these frosty conditions) and had big freezable tears running down his chilly cheeks. We managed to cheer him up enough for a few smile-inducing rides down the slide.
I'd called my friend who lived really close and her and her little guy came on over. He was of course, properly clad for thee snowy venture, and quite enjoyed his own little game of on-purpose slipping onto his snow-pant-padded behind.
Aaron enjoyed eating mitts-full, um I mean socks-full of delicious snow, while I enjoyed a nice visit with my friend.
So even though I think we all enjoyed some non-forced furnace air, along with the non-light bulbed, soul-warming sunshine, I still left with two outta three crying children, their little noses running onto their bit-too-cold cheeks.
Again, on our way home to the dishes, and mcKey saved me again.
"Wanna go my house!"
Which doesn't actually mean our house at all. But our pantry sharing neighbour friends. Pretty sure McKye would move in with them in a second. Levi probably would too.
He's pretty popular over there.
We popped in for a "quick visit".
When will I ever learn!?! By the time I was finally roundin' everybody up her husband was already pulling in from work
(I thought when we arrived I better not park in his spot,
but rationalized we'd be long gone before then!)
Aaron had fallin' alseep. Oh yes, part of the reason this was such a long day was because Aaron decided to start it off by waking up at 4 am! My other two, both had incredibly stinky bums that I being the "good mom" I am had kept putting off thinking I was about to leave anyway.
While we chatted (happily postponing any cleaning, diaper changing or supper-prep) her oldest went out and shovelled our driveway! What great kids. Seriously.
Okay so we finally went home. I have a disaster of a kitchen, no supper plans and diapers to attend to. I threw Aaron in the shower to keep him awake, and guess who joined him while I was changing McKye.... Walked right in! An was pretty proud of himself.
Time to wrap this up. We had nachos for dinner. Still put off cleaning up while watching Phineas and Ferb episodes with the kiddos. (My new favorite episode and song:)
Then the crunch was really on! Visiting Teachers arriving in half an hour and a Releif Society presidency meeting right after--here, my now totally trashed house.
Now I ask, how can I clean all the live-lon-day and get a nowhere, but Ben and I can get the entire joint in tip-top condition in no time?!?
Well I was grateful for his help.
I even got my tree put back together!
Just as I typed that, I heard the dreaded shattering noise the results it this....
Had a nice visit. Had a great meeting (was glad Ben went out for a man-date, cuz we went pretty late)
And the next day,
we just made play dough cookies instead!
This is McKye "Lion King" shirt...get it? Makes me chuckle every time he says it.
