If you haven't received yours yet, well. . .
It might not make it before Christmas, but just know that I really did have the best of intentions in getting them printed and sending them out.
Apparently being a Reindeer is more work than I thought. Busy Busy Busy!
Anyway MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone, now get out there and join in any Reindeer games!
December 21, 2009
Last Week, one of my Young Women came to our activity with the cutest bow in her hair. . .only the bow was actually made out of her hair. So I decided to give it a try on Natalie, and this is what we got.
We went to a family party on Saturday and everyone was all Oohs and Aahs over Natalie's festive hair. I was pretty shocked that she let me do it actually, since she prefers the hair-down ragamuffin look over anything up and fancy. But this shows that my little tom boy can be a girly girl occasionally. *Giggle Giggle*
December 19, 2009
So this Holiday Season I decided that I'd save a little money by "making" Christmas gifts instead of buying them. And what could be better to make, than TREATS?
Okay, so I'm not sure how much money I actually saved, because in the long run, all the Therapy that I'll need from all of this, is going to cost me.
I decided to make White Chocolate Popcorn and Caramels, because really, how hard can THAT be right? Well I've actually learned never to ask that question when it comes to baking because for me, it ALWAYS doesn't seem hard and then it turns into a nightmare! Okay so I wont lie, the popcorn was pretty darn easy. I just threw some white chocolate chips in a handy little microwave dish and nuked them for 30 second increments, stirred 'em up and then mixed 'em in my popcorn (which I also nuked in the microwave).
The Caramels on the other hand didn't go so well. Now the recipe basically says to put all your ingredients into a pot and cook it all together until you reach 250 degrees (which thankfully I have a candy thermometer) but the dilemma I faced was that my poor pot (okay it was a sauce pot), started to boil over onto my stove before I actually reached the 250 degrees. I had to frantically pour the stuff into a bigger pot, while the stuff that had boiled over burned to a crisp onto my stove. YUCK! 
Okay, so after that I was a little impatient and didn't quite let the thermometer get to 250, but what's a few degrees anyway. Well obviously a few degrees can mean the difference between Caramel and SYRUP (which is what mine turned out to be). It's actually a good thing it didn't turn out, because as I was rinsing the cans of evaporated milk that I had used, I noticed that the expiration date on them was in 2007. OH HEAVEN! (If any of you know me, you know that I have a weird thing about expiration dates, I mean who doesn't really). So the first batch didn't work out so good, but I didn't let that get me down OR beat me. I made a second batch with non-expired evaporated milk, I used the big pot, and I was patient enough to wait until the thermometer got to 250. AND voila I got a beautiful yummy batch of caramels and very happy neighbors! WooHoo!
Dec. 8, 2009
