Christmas Traditions . . .

Every year we decorate a Gingerbread house and this year we added a tree to the mix. The kids had a blast except we had a small problem . . . the first of it's kinda ever . . . can you spot it???

Emma and Navia decorating the house together

Here it goes . . .

"Okay, hurray, let me take a picture of you guys before it . . . oh no. . . "

Not willing to give up so quickly

Ta-da!!! I guess hard work does pay off!!!

And what was Kaleb doing during this entire house episode . . .

Patiently decorating his tree while singing and whistling Christmas carols . . . he is one of a kind!!!

That night Emma decided to help Navia with her reading and writing, which Daddy just had to grab a picture of. Kaleb and Emma have been taking turns reading to her and helping her with her letter recognition - just because they want to. Doesn't that make your heart smile?!?

For teacher and neighbor gifts I decided instead of buying something I would make something, and it was actually really easy and they turned out great! I made Cinnamon Honey Butter (yummy!!!), Cinnamon Loaf (thanks Coralie for the recipe!) and Gingersnaps. I also made Pecan Rolo Pretzels after receiving them as a gift from a student and wow - are they delicious (and I don't like pecans or pretzels!)

I can't take the credit for the ideas though. I found the Cinnamon Honey Butter recipe on this great blog, Tidy Mom, that I've just found.

Cinnamon Honey Butter Recipe

yields 3 half pint jars

Ingredients:

1 cup Honey

1 c. butter, softened

1 c. powdered sugar

2 tsp. cinnamon

3 half pint canning jars

• Combine all ingredients in bowl. Using whisk attachment on mixer blend until smooth and creamy, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.

• Use rubber spatula to pour mixture in to a large pastry bag (or Ziploc®bag), cut off tip and squeeze into half pint jars. (tip: place bag in tall glass for support, or have someone hold the bag while you pour)
• Keep refrigerated. Serve room temperature.

Coralie gave me a super easy recipe for the Cinnamon Loaf and I made them into little tiny (and oh so cute) loaves to give with the butter. In case you're interested in the recipe it is:

Cinnamon Loaf Recipe

yields 1 regular loaf

Loaf:

2 c. all purpose flour

1 c. white sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 tsp. salt

1 c. sour milk

1/4 c. cooking oil

2 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla

Topping:

2 Tbsp. white sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tsp. softened margarine

In a large bowl combine the top 10 ingredients and beat for approx. 3 minutes. Pour into a grease loaf pan and smooth the surface.

Combine the 3 ingredients for the topping, making it crumbly and sprinkle on top of the loaf batter in the pan. Cut in with a knife to slightly mix the topping into the loaf, giving it a marbled effect.

Bake for 50 minutes at 350C. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan before removing and ta-da . . . yum, yum!

The cookie recipe is the best ginger molasses cookies I've ever tasted! (and Kaleb can't get enough so I have to hide them as he's sneaking them like crazy!!!) I found it on a food blog created by a 17 year old girl - I wasn't that great of a cook then, but she's pretty good. Her blog is call 17 and Baking and her recipe is the following:

Perfect Gingersnaps

yield: 5 dozen 2″ cookies

2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cloves
Pinch of salt
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
3/4 cup canola oil
1 large egg
Sugar for rolling (I like evaporated cane juice or raw sugar)

Whisk together the flour, baking soda, spices, and salt in a medium bowl. In another bowl, combine together the brown sugar, molasses, canola oil, and egg until smooth. Mix the flour mixture into the brown mixture, stirring until dough comes together. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for 20 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line baking sheets with parchment paper. Scoop up bits of dough by the heaping teaspoonful and roll into balls between your palms, about the size of a quarter. Roll the balls in sugar and place on the baking sheets 2 inches apart. Bake 8 minutes – if you like crispy gingersnaps, try 9-10 minutes.

Cookies will be very soft but will firm up. Leave on the baking sheet several minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely

The pecan rolo pretzel recipe is super fast and easy to make - and tastes oh so good . . . dare you to just eat one!!!

Pecan Rolo Pretzels
50 pieces rollo candies50 small pretzels (squares or twists)50 pieces whole or halved pecans

• Place pretzels on baking sheet
• Top with one rollo candy
• Place in a warm (250 degrees) oven to just let the Rollo candy melt on top of the pretzel (about 3 - 4 minutes)
• Remove from oven and place a pecan piece on top
• Let cool and harden (takes longer than you think - and try not to eat one while you're waiting!)

Bet you never thought that I'd be giving you recipes here?!? I think I'm growing up!!!

School Christmas Celebrations

The last week of school always is full of class Christmas presentations for very grade.

Emma - Grade 4

We started with Emma's Grade 4/ Grade 5 Christmas potluck, which was intentionally a cultural selection - - - and very, very yummy!!! Emma requested sweet potato casserole as her traditional Christmas dish and it was a hit, which she was very proud of! Her class played "Jingle Bells" with their recorders and then did a Christmas Carol picture game, which she and her friend won (with help from a certain mom . . . ahem)

Emma did pastels to create this gorgeous Nutcracker

Navia - Junior Kindergarten

On Monday Navia's Junior Kindergarten/ Senior Kindergarten class had fun doing their very first presentation ever! They sang 2 Christmas songs in French, twice each, then Jingle Bells, a finger play about "5 Gingerbread Men" and then finished with a song "Father Christmas" in which they did a little dance. It was soooo cute watching them!!! Oh, and she requested that I bring ginger molasses cookies, which of course I made for her.

Navia is in the white with the jean skirt

Kaleb - Grade 2

Today we ended with Kaleb's Grade 2/ Grade 3 class which created their own presentation - from the welcome to the little skits in between their song choices. It was really enjoyable to watch and they were so proud of what they were doing! Kaleb was in the first skit and his teacher said that she loves how he's not scared of talking in front of others and knew if he started the presentation off the other kids would follow his lead. Pretty cool to hear about our little boy! Kaleb also requested that I make chocolate cupcakes with sprinkles for the presentation, as he teacher love chocolate. He was so happy telling the kids that HE brought the cupcakes they were eating.

"On the 7th of day of holidays of holidays my parents told me to scoop the dog's poop" . . . yep, that's the line that Kaleb had! It was a really cute song and it ended . . . "On the 12th day of holidays we told our parents we want to go back to school and do homework everyday instead of chores!"

Santa and Princess Navia

This past weekend was a busy one. Saturday started out with our traditional Santa Breakfast at the Community Center. The kids got to eat pancake breakfast, do crafts and then see Santa Clause. As we were standing in the line Navia looked up to me and said that this was her favorite day of the year. Awww!

Then the day got even better for Navia - in the afternoon we had her Princess Birthday Party! The only way that we could keep the Christmas decorations up was by making the house pink - so pink we did . . . Braden and I stayed up late making Martha Stewart pom pom's that we hung all around the house - 13 in total! As a note to future pom-pom makers - this is easier said than done . . . cheap, but it takes a long time to do!

To try and make it a little "pink-er" I made a pennant from scrapbooking paper, hole punch holes and ribbon. Best part about it - I can always take off the "5th" and make it generic for a future birthday - yay!!!

Navia also wanted cupcakes this year instead of a cake (which was soooo much easier for me) and I happened upon amazing princess cupcake picks so that I didn't have to make them myself - yay for me!!!

And the newest flowers . . . marshmallow pops!!! Yep - take a marshmallow, dip it in melted chocolate - I choose pink (from Michaels) and roll in sprinkles, topped with a smartie. Let them set and ta-da . . . and yummy treat!

And for loot bags we combined them with a thank-you note from Navia so that saves us time later on with making thank-you notes to send to each princess.

The girls had a blast all coming in their princess dresses.

They each made their own gingerbread house (I had pre-made them then night before with royal icing so that they would be ready for being attacked by the girls) and there was a lot of candy to choose from. They decided that they weren't going to put doors on them because there was an evil step-mother witch that was trapped inside and they didn't want her to get out - they had wild imaginations, that's for sure!!!

We played princess games like "Hot Slipper" (hot potato), "Princess Says" (simon says), a treasure hunt for Princess Tattoos that they put on their hands/wrists, some balloon games and then they ate their cupcakes and marshmallow pops and opened up presents.

2 hours after all the fun started the parents arrived and picked up all their princesses and left us with a house of quiet and a little girl who was soooo excited to play with her new toys! It was a success!!!

Navia's real birthday was on Wednesday, December 15th and she started the morning out early - wanting to open up all her presents in our room. She received her longed-after Lalaloopsy Doll (that Braden had to drive an hour to find the only 1 that I could find that I had put on hold - yep - they're really hard to find right now!), Barbie furniture from Gramma and Grampa McGifford (she put it all in her bookshelf pretending that it's a barbie house . . . little does she know that will be coming for Christmas!!!) and even a DSi XL from Grampa Bailey (a combination Christmas/birthday gift - just like her older sibling got a couple years ago from Grampa and Gramma).

Daddy took cupcakes to school for all of Navia's class and she had a great day with her name on the announcements and then coming home and playing with her new toys.

Happy 5th Birthday Navia - - - you are loved higher than the sky and deeper than the ocean!!!

December 16th, 2005

December 15th, 2010

a sneak peek...

Yesterday was a busy day in the Bailey household . . . I'll post about it when I catch a few zzzz's, but here's a pic to give you a little hint as to what one of the activities was . . .

Advent Activities and . . . shhhhh

I've posted a couple years ago about our Advent Calendar and the kids still LOVE it. You can see the post here. Well as of December 1 we needed to start opening the pockets and doing whatever they told us to.

Advent Calendar Day 1 - Watch a Christmas Movie

It was too bad that both Daddy and I were working during that time, but the babysitter and the kids were able to watch a Home Alone movie, which they LOVE!!! Grampa and Gramma Bailey gave them the movies when we first were moving out here and they watched them over and over in the van on the way out. They have great memories of them and still giggle and are shocked when they know exactly what's going to happen - so cute!

Advent Calendar Day 2 - Read a Christmas Book

This is a tradition that starts at the beginning of December, but is continued most every day of the month. I've been collecting various Christmas books and try to add new ones each year. When the tree is up we set them under the tree for the kids to read through by themselves and also to choose from when it's family reading time. We always start the books with "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" by Barbara Robinson. Braden and I received this book from Braden's Mom on our first Christmas together as she told us about her memories with reading the book to her family and said that every family needs at least one copy of this book. We remember Mom and our kids love it - Imogene and all!

Advent Calendar Day 3 - Find the Biggest Christmas Tree that's Lit Up

Okay, well, this one was a failure. We thought that Parliament Hill had a big Christmas tree, but, well, oops! They didn't.

The plan was to go to the Hill because the night before we knew they had just lit it up. The kids still had a blast seeing the snowflakes on the buildings, walking around, talking to the RCMP officer and just hanging out.

Emma at the Eternal Flame - you can see the Center Block behind all lit with snowflakes.

While we were at the Flame a RCMP officer drove up to us and started talking with the kids - giving them each something special (pins and flags). He was a VERY friendly guy, we almost weren't able to leave because he just kept on talking - but in the good way! As we were leaving he grabbed a little boy and said "Mom, take a picture of us", but the problem was that wasn't MY boy! We had a good laugh and he came out at took pictures with our kids and then the mom of the "other" boy did the same.

The National Arts Centre has this exhibit of Oscar Peterson at their building so the kids had fun pretending to play the piano and get their pictures taken.

Okay - this really is a picture of all of us, but my arms really aren't that long for fitting us all in - but that's Navia's cheek - hehehe!

Advent Calendar Day 4 - Go on a Wagon Ride

The church that we attend had a Christmas in the Country afternoon. We all went our to a ranch and the kids could look at the animals (buffalo, goats, sheep, horses, pigs, chickens, etc) and then they got to try their hand a lasso-ing, cook marshmallows over the bonfire, go for a wagon ride and just hang out. The kids LOVED it (said it was the second best farm they've been on - Gramma and Grampa McGifford's being the first, of course!) It was the coldest it's been and we weren't all ready for it. So it was really only -9 Celcius with the windchill, but hey, we've been having some great weather and this was cold!

Yep - the wagon ride took us on a highway - - - hmmmmm . . .

We had all brought homemade goodies so afterwards we had hot chocolate and yummy, yummy treats. It was a good afternoon. And to top it off we went to our friends' place in Kanata for dinner after and were able to warm up with amazing chili and fun conversation.

Advent Calendar Day 5 - Decorate your Christmas Tree

After much discussion and convincing that we didn't need to go cut down our own Christmas tree this year (like we do every year - see this post) we went into the basement and pulled out our used only once Christmas tree. The kids decided that it wasn't that bad and we started decorating.

We kinda have a tradition of the parents doing the lights and ribbon garland and then the kids get the ornaments from me and have Daddy help with placement. Yep - I'm kinda controlling about them all ending up in one place and this saves me time because otherwise I WILL redecorate it when they go to bed - I truly will !

See - I'm handing out the ornaments . . .

I don't know if Daddy will be able to do this next year for Emma!

And it's done!!! The first fake tree that the kids remember that took a lot of convincing is now up - yay!!! Let the Christmas season begin!!!

Navia has been asking for a Barbie house for her birthday and Christmas and although there are many to choose from at various stores Brade has opted out of them all. He wants to build her a special Barbie house with drawers at the bottom to store "extras" and when you're finished playing there will be doors to close so that she can continue the next play-time without Mommy asking her to clean it up. Hmmm - Daddy's pretty smart! It will also be the perfect size for her - not too big or too small - Navia size! He just started building it tonight and plans on having cedar shingles and everything . . . I'm glad he's doing it and not me!!! But, I'm thinking that it's going to look pretty terrific when it's all done - Navia's a lucky girl!

Shhh - don't tell Navia because he's building this in the garage and the little girl has no clue!!! Don't ruin the surprise!!!

Good-Bye Movember!!!

It is officially the first day of December, which means the last day of Movember is over and gone - yay!!! Thanks to everyone for donating - it looks like Canada has raised over $19 million & all countries together have raised over $57 million for prostate cancer research and awareness - pretty good considering it's a bunch of guys not shaving - hehehe! Oh, and all the money hasn't come it yet either - so the guys did really well!

So last night it left - slowly but surely. The scary part was when he was only half-way through and contemplating leaving the rest - yikes!!! Check out the pics . . . aren't you glad he finished the job too?!?!

He went to pray with the kids with the last stage and Navia laughed at him, Kaleb said he liked it and Emma . . . well . . . I had a camera to catch her expression.

She banned him from coming to her school until it was all gone! Do you really blame her?