10 posts tagged “xmas”

M's had a nice Christmas. She's an interesting kid, she's never been one to be all about the presents. From her second birthday on when she's opened enough presents, has a handful of things she really likes, she's finished and just stops opening gifts. This year was no different. We opened 4 presents Xmas Eve, from us, and that was great! She loved her Etch A Sketch, and we read a couple of the books at bedtime. Xmas Day she got all the stuff in her stocking (including a new digital camera) and her kitchen set, and that was enough! She put on her sticky ear rings, her matching "fancy finger rings", took some pictures of her kitchen then played with her kitchen. At my grandparents' place, with presents from aunts and uncles, cousins, grandparents and great grandparents, it was too much. About half way through she was finished. She opened two or three more because the family members were bugging her about it, then she just stopped with four presents to go. We opened a couple of them the next day, and still have two more under the tree. We still haven't given her two of our presents, and we just might wait for her birthday.

Anyhoo, all that to say she's really been all about the "events" this year. We had a carriage ride to see the lights at the park a month back, where we saw Santa and had cookies and hot chocolate.  We did a Solstice Celebration a couple weekends back, and she really got a kick out of the drumming and chanting and flute playing. She loved the Gospel Xmas Eve at church. She enjoyed our trip to KC and is looking forward to seeing more family in Iowa this week. Right now it's all about the events moreso than the presents, which is cool to see, but makes for a .. different sort of holidays with a little one. I know she enjoys her presents, she's told us so, but her reaction to them has been .. muted I guess.

Oh, funny thing, her favorite present so far? Not the camera, not the kitchen, no, it's the $15 Etch A Sketch! Why? Well, she loved playing with the one at the Panera Bread over Thanksgiving, and she's very good at making things with it, but more than that it's because it was an absolute surprise to her! She said, "Thank you for my Etch A Sketch, I really love it. I was so surprised. I didn't even know I was getting it! I knew what I'd ordered from Santa, but I didn't even think you guys would get me an Etch A Sketch!" It was cute. Particularly the "I knew what I'd ordered from Santa", like Santa = Amazon .... wait ... hmm...

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies - CHECK!
Dough for Swedish Almond Cardamom Stars (chilling to bake tonight) - CHECK!
Dough for Lebkuchen (chilling for 24 hours) - CHECK!
Oatmeal Toffee Cookies - CHECK!

*Addendum: Swedish Almond Cardamom Stars baked - CHECK!

Still to come:
Baking Lebkuchen
Dough for Espresso Crinkles
Dough for Spiced Vanilla Cookies

Started off as a super lazy morning.  I woke up just before 8a, watched a bit of Sports Center, occassionally jumping to the Food Network on commercials.  Rae started stirring just before 9a, and that's about the time M woke up and came into our bedroom.  We vegged for another 10 minutes or so, watching the last of whatever cooking show was on Food Network, then turning to ESPN just in time for the top-10 plays of the week, and then finally got ourselves moving.  Had oatmeal and engilsh muffins and hot chocolate for breakfast.

Now, Rae and I are sipping coffee at the dinner table while Rae is going through December's Cooking Light mag and picking the handful of things we're going to bake this weekend, and making a list of stuff to get at the grocery. I've got holiday music going on accuradio and M is singing the songs and dancing around the living room. It's a good morning.

We're also planning out our xmas eve dinner, something nice just for the three of us.  While looking over possible entres Rae says, "You should bake the bread for our dinner."  So now I need to find an easy bread recipe formula and get up the nerve to make my first loaf of fresh bread.  Fun fun!

We got six boxes of the Red 40-free candy canes at Whole Foods this afternoon, and decided to make the first peppermint bark of the season this evening.  We use this recipe, nothing too fancy, but then I think it's pretty hard to make peppermint bark fancy.  In addition to the dye-free candy canes (which have a stronger peppermint flavor than regular candy canes) we also use peppermint oil, about 2 tsp.  Add that to two pounds of melted almond bark and voila, great tasting peppermint bark.  There's a whole photo recipe of our baking prowess on my flickr.

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For those of you that were around for the After Thanksgiving Adventures a couple of years ago, during which we purchased M's first digital camera, here's a quick update.

M has been playing with my camera for months now, and with Rae's work camera recently (mine's broke, more on that some other time).  She's really taken to Rae's because the camera is small and the LCD is large and she knows how to turn it on, take a picture, put it in view mode and back into picture mode all by herself.  Over the spring and summer she'd still get hers out, play with it now and then, but it just wasn't the same as mine or mom's.  So a couple weeks ago we're at Target and I take us over to the camera section to see what I can see, and M immediately gravitates to this red Nikon camera.  She wants to try it, so I give it to her and without so much as a, "Here's how it works" she's got it turned on and having Rae pose for a picture, then turning it to view mode to show us. Buh-wa? What did she just do?  That's right, without telling her a thing, she had it all figured out, what buttons to push, what dials to turn.  She loved it and wanted to take one home, but we told her to put it on her list for Santa.

Fast forward a week and two places have the red Nikon on sale.  Alas, it's a crazy busy week for us, and we don't get out to shopping until the end of the week - everyone is sold out.  BUT places have the blue version of the same camera on sale, so we jump on it, Rae gets a GREAT deal on the 2-year accidental damage warranty (hey, it's a $100 camera for a 4.5 year old) and now we've at least got a camera if we're not able to find a deal on the red one.  In the ensuing week I get an e-mail from the place I got my camera that they have the red one on sale ... and sold out by the time I log on (but they have the blue one!).  Two other online places offer the red one (one's already sold out), but neither are on sale and the warranty is expensive(!).  So now I'm thinking Let's get her to want the blue one *grin*.

Fast forward to last night, we're on our way home from work/school.  I tell her we're going to see Santa tomorrow night (tonight) and what does she want to ask him for?  She immediately rattles off her ideas, along with "a red camera."  I ask her, "What if it's not red?" to which she replies, "That's ok, but we'll ask for a red one"  Me, "What if it's a blue one?" M, "OOOH! Yeah! Or rainbow!  I want to ask for a rainbow one, but if not rainbow, if Santa can't make a rainbow one, then definitely blue, or red would be good too."  So, we'll see what she says to him tonight, but it sounds like we've forestalled any drama like last years.  Now, if I could just figure out how to make it rainbow, then I'd be one cool poppa Santa!  Stay tuned!

Just a quick post to show off the loot M got from Santa this year.  She loves her Hello Kitty watch, and the purple bag has blue and red chapstick ("lipstick") and different covers for her new watch.  We played Uno a bunch on Xmas Day, and watched the Backyardigans movie on our trip to Peoria.

Gah!  Bowls of M&Ms out for public consumption are evil!  I was just in the lunchroom, heating some water for some hotchocolate, and ate a handful of M&Ms while I waited, simply because they were there.  Because they were there!!  GAH!!!  I've got yummy home baked goodies to eat, I don't need to be eating crap that basically becomes wasted calories.  GAH!!

Just got back from Target.  Had to get some necessities and a string of lights for the tree, because one of our strings just wouldn't work last night.  Ended up walking through the toy aisles, at first as an inadvertent cut through to the xmas stuff, then to look for a few things for M's cousin.  Then on a whim I wanted to see if they had any of the cameras, and sure enough they had the "Target Only" red fisherprice digicam.  I showed Rae, then put it back, when I saw a little tag on the box "Free 32MB SD Card" .. huh.  And about $5 cheaper than the one we got at Kmart.  We decided to throw it in the cart and get it, and see if we can start working on her about wanting 'a red camera', maybe with the angle that it'll be different than her cousin's and "special" and they would be able to tell them apart.  We'll see.  If she doesn't budge, then we'll just give her the blue one and take the red one back, no big deal.  But it would be nice to have the free memory card and pay a few bucks less.  We'll see.

I was one of those people on Friday.  Yes, me, anti-consumerist that I am.  But it was for a good cause.  No, really, there are such things when it comes to traipsing out of the house at 5:30 in the morning on the day after Thanksgiving to brave the insane crowds of got-to-have-it-first shoppers spending money on can't-miss-"deals".  The good cause you might ask?  My 2.5 year old daughter, who has done nothing but talk about 'a blue camera' like her cousin's for the past month and a half.  My beautiful  2.5 year old daughter who told Santa a couple of Friday's ago that all she wanted was 'a blue camera' like her cousin's.  My single-minded, beautiful 2.5 year old daughter who has told everyone, family and stranger alike, that Santa is going to bring her 'a blue camera' just like her cousin's for xmas.  If you ask her what else she wants, all she'll tell you is 'a blue camera' just like her cousin's.

So what is this 'blue camera' like her cousin's?  It's a Fisher Price digital camera.  M's cousin got it for his birthday back in October, and shortly after opening it had a meltdown that lasted for about 20 minutes, which afforded my little opportunist enough time to nearly fill up the memory card taking pictures of everyone and everything (including her feet) in the room.  I'm not going to go into any product review here, there are plenty to be found, spanning the spectrum from "great toy for little ones" to "don't waste your money".  What I will say is it's a digital camera made to be played with and used and dropped and thrown by toddlers, that will allow them to play at taking pictures just like mommy and papa, and will allow parents to share said pictures with friends and family through e-mails and web albums.  Some reviews have said the quality is so poor it's not worth the money, while others have said that as a toy, it's great, and with the added value of getting to see the world through your kid's eyes, it's priceless.

All I know is that my bright, single-minded, beautiful 2.5 year old daughter wants nothing else for xmas than 'a blue camera' like her cousin's, so we were going to do everything we could to get it for her.  I've been calling every Target in the area for the past week and a half, all of which were out and said to keep calling to check if they get some in their shipments (that they get twice at week last week, nearly every day from here til xmas).  I checked Target.com which was out and said they'd e-mail us when it was available to order.  We found some on Amazon.com, at $20 more than the list price.  I told Rae that before she pulled the trigger on one of those (she was so worried we wouldn't get it), that I wanted to keep looking.  In her mind that translated into leaving the house at 5:30 the Friday after Thanksgiving to go to K-mart and try and find one.  And we did. THE LAST ONE!

The last one.  It was one of those moments where I held it in my hands like Indiana Jones holding the rock statue after having just placed the bag of sand in its place, looking at it with reverence and awe at having found the unfindable, before realizing that there are others out there looking for the same treasure.  Suddenly everyone around me was a potential Dr. Rene Belloq, wanting my prize and willing to do anything to get it.  I clutched it to my chest, looking at everyone standing near us, knowing they were looking for the same thing, and that I had the last one.  Rae wanted to look around since we were there, but I just wanted to pay for my treasured find and get out before the natives got restless and started shooting arrows or poisoned darts at us.  I told her to start the engines while I checked out with my treasure and we headed home, looking over our shoulders to make sure we weren't being followed.  We weren't *whew*

So now the blue camera like her cousin's is sitting safe and sound in the weatherproof lock box buried somewhere in the back yard, accessible only if you have the right map, of which there are 7 variant copies placed strategically throughout the house, the correct one of which can only be deciphered by holding it up to the flame of a violet candle poured during the first full moon of autumn.  So don't bother trying to get ours, just go find your own and experience your own Indiana Jones moment.  It'll be worth it, trust me.