Our First Gingerbread House

I decided to get a gingerbread house for us to make with Evan this year. For our first gingerbread house, I think we did pretty good. I did start by getting a bit frustrated with the icing that started by just beating into tiny little balls (it really takes way more water than the directions said)! Then we had a mishap as I mistook the roof pieces for the side pieces. :) My hubby straightened it all out, and we were on our way, except we had to keep Evan patient as he wanted to get into the candy right away when the house was supposed to dry for 2 to 3 hours! Wish I'd know that in advance. We ate dinner to distract him and then got back to the gingerbread house. We only waited a little over an hour, but it seemed sturdy so we went ahead with decorating it. Brad did a great job piping the icing for the doors and windows while Evan and I were spreading icing on the roof, then he did a lattice pattern on the roof. Finally it was time to add the candy - Evan did one side of the roof and I did the other. It was fun for us all and I'm pretty proud of our first gingerbread house. A new family tradition is born. :)

My side of the roof

Evan's side of the roof - he did really good!

Christmas Craftiness

Well, in the midst of the Christmas craziness I actually found some time to do a little craft project - a Christmas wreath made out of American Crafts paper. I won't take any credit for the idea - all the thanks go to Holly who came up with this amazing project. And she gave step-by-step instructions! How easy...actually, it did take some time to assemble but was well worth it.

The hardest part was finding all the supplies. My local scrapbook/craft stores don't have much American Crafts selection. So I ended up with American Crafts Jolly paper (not the new Merrymint), but I really like that as well, so I didn't mind. And I had to order the Flair! buttons online. The toughest item to find was the extra large brads - couldn't find those locally so Holly pointed me online, but they were out of the largest ones and the slightly smaller 18mm ones just didn't look right on the flowers I tried. So, getting frustrated, I finally came across some 1 inch wood circles that had letters on them. They are thicker than the brads so my flower petals came out a bit smaller. I tried compensating by cutting the paper squares a bit bigger, but I still had noticeable difference in the sizes. The size seemed to also vary between my different paper choices. So when I put together the wreath, trying to overlap the flowers so none of the ribbon could be seen, I ended up with a larger empty space at the top. I covered that by doing a larger double ribbon.

In the end, I think it came out as great unique finished project! I'm so excited to display this every year at Christmastime.

Our Christmas Card

I was so excited that we finally captured a family photo with Evan smiling. As an active toddler, it's very hard to get him to slow down, not wiggle around and say cheese. Though he is getting better if you catch him at the right moment. Anyway, after several different trys we got a really nice family photo for our Christmas Card. Check it out below.

I always like to do a photo card because I love receiving photo cards. I keep them up for quite a while after the holidays and then I put them in a scrapbook page that I make with pockets to hold them. I love to look back and see family and friends growing and changing over the years.

Oh, and we have always had our cards printed at Costco. They have amazing prices on photo cards, nice designs, and they are a larger size than the typical photo card. I could actually design it myself if I wanted and have it printed at the same price. Unfortunately, I haven't been feeling well the last month or so, which meant I just didn't have the energy to design it myself this year, but there is always next year!

If you'd like to share your Christmas card as well, join the Christmas Card Carousel.

Christmas Cookie Exchange - Black Bottom Cupcakes

Okay, so these are not technically cookies. But they are always a hit when I give them out every year at Christmas. These go way back into my childhood as my mom made them every year. And now I do. It just wouldn't be Christmas without these.


BLACK BOTTOM CUPCAKES

Ingredients:

For Cream Cheese Filling:
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1 egg
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

For Cupcake:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vinegar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 350°. Line two 12-cup mini muffin pans with paper or foil baking cups. There are always fun Christmas ones around.


• To make cream cheese filling: using an electric mixer, combine the cream cheese, egg, sugar and salt. Fold in the chocolate chips and set aside.


• To make cupcakes: in a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, the baking soda and cocoa powder. Add water, the oil, vinegar and vanilla and blend with electric mixer until smooth.


• Fill each baking cup two-thirds full with the cupcake batter and top with 1 tablespoon of the cream cheese mixture. Bake until the edges are firm to the touch, about 25 minutes.

Also, found nutritional info for those of us who need to know that.

Nutritional Information
Black Bottom Cupcakes
Servings Per Recipe: 24
Amount Per Serving
Calories: 137
Total Fat: 6.7g
Cholesterol: 19mg
Sodium: 144mg
Total Carbs: 17.8g
Dietary Fiber: 0.5g
Protein: 1.9g

Check out more Christmas cookie recipes at The Mom Creative blog.


Or for more cupcake recipes visit Hoosier Homemade.

Decorating is coming along slowly...

Well, we never get the chance to put up our Christmas tree and decorations right after Thanksgiving. But it's for good reason - we are spending quality time with my Mom and Stepdad in Melbourne the weekend after Thanksgiving. So, I've had to start getting the decorations up during the work week in bits and peices each night. So far, I've only gotten the tree up and the garland over the mantle and hung our new stockings from Old Navy. Oh, and the table centerpeice I made is out. Tonight I'm hoping to have Evan help decorate the tree. I already put some new candy cane ornaments I got up, and so far Evan grabs every single one of them down calling them "candles" and saying they are his. It's going to be interesting to see what he does once all the ornaments are up! :) And Evan still refers to our stockings as socks, like he did last year!

You can see the decorations as they were last year here. I'll post pics from this year in the coming week. I'm also doing a crafty wreath project and hope that will come together over the next week. I love Christmas time! Don't you?