Stuck in the chair while making Christmas goodies...

Gavin spent last weekend with us; I went and got him Friday night and then we took him back home Sunday night.  Saturday morning we were up making candy for Christmas.  Well I was making it and I had him trapped in his chair - he was having breakfast and snackies and being the good little boy that he is.  Breakfast was a banana and probably some peaches.  He LOVES those Dole diced peaches in a cup.  And then snackies were those Welches fruit snacks.  They are fruit flavored gummies.  His eyes get so big (as if they aren't already big enough) and he gets a huge smile on his face when I pull them out of the box and asks him if he wants some.  He truly makes my heart melt.



I didn't take pictures of my whole candy making process although I kind of wish I would have.  On this particular morning I made peppermint crunch candy, brownie bites with M&M's, and dipped pretzel rods with M&M's.  I also made some ham wrapped pinwheels for our church dinner the next day. 

The peppermint crunch candy is white discs melted in a double boiler and then the red and green crushed peppermint are mixed it.  I then spread it on a wax paper-lined cookie sheet and put in the refrigerator to harden.  Once it's hardened I break it apart into small pieces and enjoy the yummy goodness.  When I first started working at the bank, it's probably been about 14 years ago, a lady made this and gave me a small bag of it.  It was SO yummy!  I got the recipe from her and I believe I have made it every year since at Christmas.  It's been my Christmas speciality. 

The brownie bites were just brownies made in the little muffin tin from Pampered Chef with red and green M&M's.  These didn't turn out like I thought they would, but they were still yummy!  I couldn't find my Baker's Joy spray to use in the muffin pan so I just used some buttered Pam spray instead.  I couldn't hardly get the brownie bites out and that's when I remembered that I really needed the Baker's Joy.  Baker's Joy is an oil spray with flour in it and it works GREAT with that muffin tin.  The muffins will just slide out when you use it.  Needless to say, it's on my next grocery list!  Also, in the first batch of brownie bites, I put the M&M's on top of the bites before I baked them and they sunk down into the brownie.  So once I took them out of the oven, I placed more M&M's on top and let them cool that way.  That's how they were supposed to be.  So whoever ate from the first batch got some extra special goodness inside each bite!  LOL!! 

I also made dipped pretzel rods with pretzel rods, white almond bark, and red and green M&M's.  Yummy!  I had to make a few for Shawn with Reese's Pieces on them though.  I can honestly say that I only ate one dipped pretzel rod this year.  I had to stay away from them otherwise I would of eaten the whole container of them!  To make them, I just melted white almond bark in the microwave and spooned the melted almond bark over about 3/4 of the pretzel - just enough to cover the pretzel but still have a handle to hold.  Then I shook off the excess almond bark and laid it on wax paper.  I then topped each rod with red and green M&M's (or Reese's pieces for Shawn).  I've made these before for other holiday's and used the holiday M&M's that correspond with that holiday.  I'm such a festive homemaker.  LOL!!

Well here are the only two pictures I took of the candy making process on this particular morning.  Pretty spectacular huh?  LOL!











My pets and the snow

A week or so ago (it's sad, I can't even remember the date!) we had a "big" snow and I went outside to take some pictures.  My dogs will have nothing to do with the snow and won't go outside.  You can see Reese just standing in the door in the first picture and Hershey was probably already hiding under the covers.  My big fat cat Clifford on the other hand, loves going outside....rain or shine or snow, he's out there. 

Ice Cream = Yummy!

Saturday night, Shawn, Gavin, and I drove up to Ft. Branch to eat dinner at Sandy's Pizza with Steve and Christa.  They have an ice cream machine and after dinner I decided to get Gavin his own ice cream cone.  I don't think he's ever had his OWN ice cream cone so I thought it would be cute to see him with it.  I didn't put that much ice cream in it, but it was enough for him to have his own.  He wasn't too sure about it at first; probably more like he wasn't sure what to do with it.  I showed him how to lick the ice cream with his tongue and then how to eat the cone once he had the ice cream all licked down in the cone.  He did a great job with it and really enjoyed it.  It was cute how he would take a bite of it, sit the cone down, pick up his napkin and wipe his face, sit the napkin down, and then pick up the ice cream cone again to have another lick.  He kept repeating this over and over again. 

Boonville Christmas Parade

On Sunday after church, we went to Boonville to the Christmas parade.  Shawn's work had a float in the parade again this year and their theme was Scobby Doo.  There wasn't as many there this year to ride on the float as there was last year, probably because it was SO COLD!  I had on 2 and 3 layers of clothes along with my coat, gloves, scarf and earmuffs, and a blanket over my lap and I was STILL freezing!  It's alot of fun riding on the float, tossing candy to the big and little kids, yelling Merry Christmas and waving.  I'm not sure how big of a parade it is since we've always been in the parade, but the kids on the streets always have huge bags of candy by the time we get by!

A lady from Shawn's work that is in charge of the floats, was running up to people's houses and giving them candy if they were watching from the streets.  I thought that was really nice of her!

Some of the people on the float with us.  This is Shawn's direct boss, his wife, and their 2 kids.

WOW Christmas Party

On Saturday night, we went to Shawn's work Christmas party at the Old Courthouse Downtown.  It started at 6:30 and they had dinner and dessert, they gave away prizes, they had casino tables/games, and a photo booth.  We had dinner which was catered from the Bauerhouse and consisted of turkey, ham with pineapple, little boiled potatoes, seasoned veggies, rolls, and salad.  And then they had pecan pie, chocolate pie, and coconut creme pie (my favorite!).  We didn't win any prizes, but had a good time and got some silly pictures from the photo booth.  All of the pictures except for the last one came out of the photo booth. 

I took this last picture of us as we were leaving the party.