Christmas Eve Musings

It's Christmas Eve and we just got back from having dinner at my grandma's house with my family.  We had a delicious ham and potato dinner (along with salad, rolls and vegetables).  After dinner my mom had us play a few songs with these bells and then we sort-of sang Christmas songs.  We read scriptures, had dessert (we brought pumpkin pie and I made Oreo Peppermint Cookies) and my mom gave us a few gifts.  It was a nice evening.  Before we left, we opened up our Christmas Eve gift and we all got new pajamas.  I'll make sure to get a picture of all of us in them tomorrow.

I had this post written up a few days ago, but then never got around to publishing it.  So, I will publish it now as it's as good of a day as any.  Christmas is tomorrow and it should be a lot of fun!  Scott works in the morning,but I'll be making a fun breakfast and start packing (since we're leaving for California the next day!) while we wait for him to get home.  Then we'll open presents and my family will come over to where I'm sure we'll play games and watch movies.  Anyways, back to the original post.

Kylie continually shows interest in cleaning and helping with the chores around the house.  She still loves to help me in doing laundry and will now put the clothes from the washer into the dryer and put the clothes from the dryer into the hamper.  She's not as helpful in folding and putting clothes away, though.  I might make that her main chore around the house when she's older as that's the worst part about doing laundry and I'd rather not do it (evil laugh).  Kylie also enjoys sweeping and actually went to the pantry to grab the broom after she saw a mess on the floor from eating.  She'll also help me empty the dishwasher, but only the utensils.

We bought raspberries the other day and Scott started putting them on Kylie's fingers, like you can do with olives.  Kylie had fun trying to figure out what was on her finger and then eating it.

I made a list of Christmas goodies that I wanted to make during the Christmas season.  I have 3 checked off and I'm hoping to check off at least 2 more.  One of the goodies was sugar cookies.  I have a recipe that I used when I was teaching that I love and makes the softest cookies.  I made the dough, rolled it out and put Kylie up on the counter with me to help cut out some shapes.  Instead of pressing the cookie cutter into the dough, she would just drag it through the dough.  After a little bit, she picked up some dough and ate it.  She immediately went back for more and more and more.  I finally had to put her down and she got super upset at me.  I gave her some real food instead, but it was cute to see how much she loved the cookie dough.  This girl has a sweet tooth just like her mom.  I had her wear one of my old aprons from college, but I'm thinking I might sew her one here sometime soon (especially since she just got a super fun play kitchen).  Kylie enjoyed eating the cookies the next day with her cousins.

Actually, speaking of Christmas goodies, I think I've finally figured out this one recipe that haunts me every year.  I wrote a post about it back in 2011 and I've been trying to figure out the recipe since.  Even though it's not an amazing recipe, it's just bugged me that I couldn't figure it out.  The brownies would always, always stick to the bottom of the pan no matter how much I greased it.  I also never did the ganache or crushed peppermint on top.  This year, I bought mini cupcake liners and used that along with greasing the inside of those.  I figured out the baking time (1-2 minutes less than the recipe calls for) and with the chocolate and peppermint on top, they were delicious!!  I even felt confident enough to send some to work with Scott.  It's funny how a recipe turning out can make me so happy.