Gluttony Report 2

Five of the seven are home now, so there as a present blitz again this morning. 

I'm posting a few pictures from Christmas morning, too.

Yay.....

Super fancy Heidi Klum perfume

Matt had an r/c car as a kid that he broke on Christmas day.

Santa gave him a Mulligan.

If he breaks this one, he's out of luck. It will be clear that he has no business playing with such complicated machinery.

 Dang right, those are Bose QC's. 

Spoiled, spoiled Matt.

I guess I'm pretty spoiled, too.

 Pajamas...yaaaaaaaayyyy....

 In a perfect world, everything Jane owned would be from Aeropostale.

That's how the world is when you're 11 and just discovering mall brands.

I'd have given my right arm for anything Guess? or from Benneton as a kid and I was hopelessly addicted to Esprit- all because of the brand name.

 Custom All Blacks T- shirt, it says "SMITH" on the back.

 Kate was just a little bit tired this morning.

 Woohoo! A new watch! And where did mom get it? Aeropostale?! 

Oh my, it's a preteen wish come true!

 Skyrim for the Xbox. 

Who needs girls when you have this?

He may be 16, but he's still a little butt who likes to torment his older brother.

The Nerf gun is going to get old really fast.

Grey and Roe come home in a few days and there will be one more set of gluttony pictures. 

Until then, try your best to wait patiently. 

Maybe I'll make some knitting or cooking posts to keep you on the edge of your seats in the meantime....

Grinch

I'm in a grumpy mood. 

Too many fruitcakes this holiday season, I guess. 

Hey Kaylynn

I made the Yummy Rummy cake last night to break in the new mixer and I used extract instead of Captain Morgan, and in my opinion it was just too rich and sweet, so if you haven't made it yet and you pan to go the extract route, I'd cut back on the sweetness if you can. 

Just a heads up.

Also, we love and miss you. 

:)

Gluttony Report 1

No kids this year for the holidays.

 Matt and I had a quiet birthday, we went to Sweet Home Chicago at  the District for some deep dish happiness.

I've probably blogged about them before, but their stuffed crust is almost exactly like Giordano's in Chicago.  We ordered a whole (small) pizza each, knowing it wouldn't get swiped over the holiday weekend  by kids and have been enjoying leftovers today. 

We went to a movie, Mission Impossible, I loved it.

Even though I think Tom Cruise is a crazy fruit loop, when he's got the right role, he's awesome. I loved the addition of Simon Pegg. This is an action movie done right, probably in the top 10 of my favorites.

Of course, in that same list is the winner of many rotten tomatoes, Hitman, which as way too many bad words to be something I should admit to loving- but that gives you an idea of my taste in movies. 

Blow something up, jump on a moving vehicle and  crack a cheesy joke and you've got a fan in me.

Santa came pretty quietly, I said "cover your eyes" and poof, he came for Matt.

 Matt said "go in the other room for 5 minutes" and poof-- presents for me.

We woke up at 9am to open them. I was worried that I'd be the dork I usually am and wake up at 5 am and not be able to wait, but I'm all grown up now, and I have Ambien for that.

Unfortunately, the Ambien kicked in a little too early last night and when Joie dropped of my birthday present, she included a confetti gun and I shot Matt in the face with it.

I vaguely remember it, but in my memory I was being cute and festive. 

In his memory, I about took his eye out with a confetti gun.

Oops.

I came thisclose to shooting his eye out for Christmas.

Sorry, Babe.

We opened gifts this morning and it was really quiet, but since Matt's my best friend,  it was really fun, too. I love being a mom, love our kids but part of what keeps me going on hard days is the knowledge that when those days are gone and the kids have hopefully all left the nest, that Matt and I really do enjoy each other's company, we can be alone together and we don't need other people around in order to feel complete.  Being surrounded by loved ones is nice, but it's enough to just be surrounded by love.

Matt, as always, overspent what we agreed on and surprised me with this:

I've only wanted one since I was 19. I'm so excited to use it.

He also got me a new knife set that will actually cut things. We have decent knives here, but we also have 7 kids and the knives we have are not what I'd call sharp. These are brand new and different from the others and if any kids touch them, I will stab them because now, I can.

I got some wii games, a dvd box set and a Kindle gift card.

I'm so spoiled by Matt and he always ignored our agreed upon budget for Christmas. I always feel like a cheapo when I stick to it.

Knowing this, I threw the budget out the window and instead tried to figure out about how much he blow it by each year and got him something awesome that he would never have bought for himself, but that he has had in his wish list for a long time, only they were not practical.

I got him these:

The grand poobah of all headphones.

They are really cool, you can't hear the furnace running when you wear them, even if you're not listening to music.

I finally feel like I had a slam dunk for Christmas.

I also realized that when you buy a guy with size 13 feet cheap dress socks, you're not really buying him anything because they don't last even a whole work day so he got some nice dress socks.

Boring, but hey- he has Bose QC15's, so even socks can slip through as okay.

Parker comes home Tuesday and Matt is picking up the girls as well. Zane comes home Wednesday. Grey and Roe don't get home until next Sunday so we will be having at least 2 more present days to bore the crud out of you with.

Oh yeah, and also there was church today, Matt sang in the choir and it was beautiful. Weird to go in and sit by myself, but Ila asked me to come sit with her and her daughter and son in law and then said she was sitting with her "two daughters" which made me feel like a million bucks.

I don't know what I ever did to get blessed with such an amazing ward, but I sure am lucky.

Luckier than Matt with those headphones, even. :)

Merry Christmas, Everyone.

A Recipe You Won't Get Dragged into the Bishop's Office For

Okay, you won't get dragged in for the rum cake either, it cooks out, it really does.

But this stuff is amazing.

Last year, my sweet neighbor, Mindy, gave us all a bag if this, I took one bite and told the kids to bug off, I wasn't sharing with anyone but Matt.

Truth be told, I may not have shared with him either. 

This year, she gave us the same stuff and after not sharing it again, I felt a little guilty.

I also just wanted more.

I asked her for the recipe and it is really simple and it makes a ton.

Grab your kids and let them help you make it, bag it up and share it with neighbors and see if the decide not to share it with their children, too.

(My picture isn't loading up, so I swiped this from the web. Thank you http://www.kyinthekitchen.com/ )

Here is Mindy's recipe.....

SWEET TREAT

1 large box Golden Grahams
1 large box Rice or Corn Chex (or mix both)
1 lb. coconut
1 12 oz. bag slivered almonds
cashews (optional)

Mix and boil for 3 minutes:
3 cubes margarine
2 cups sugar
2 cups corn syrup
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Pour the sugar mixture over cereal and nuts. Store in open container (or it will go soggy)

This made a lot of chex mix, it uses a total of 2 big boxes of cereal, after all. That makes it a great neighborhood gift. The final product is sticky and some people add M&M's peanuts, cashews and pretzels. I think pretzels would be great, but it is very sweet and I don't know about adding candy to it.

Anyway, make this and you will forgive me for leading you astray with the yummy rummy and for naming something "yummy rummy."

Yummy Rummy Cake

 I said it earlier,  I'll say it again.....this cake is the best thing I've ever baked.

When I give this cake as a gift to my LDS friends/associates I always just use extract.
When I give it to Matt's employees, the sauce is downright flammable, but I don't eat any of that batch.
If you come to my house and we have this cake, I will tell you if I used real rum or just extract.

That's my disclaimer, use your free agency, Yo.

I started with a basic recipe for a pina colada cake, but their sauce was more of a booze infused frosting and I wanted something where I cooked out the liquor and that I could soak the cake in better, so I kind of made the sauce up myself.

Yummy Rummy Cake

CAKE

1 package white cake mix
1 (4 ounce) package instant coconut cream pudding mix (vanilla is OK, too I could not taste a difference)
1/3 cup rum OR 4 TB of imitation rum extract 

4 eggs

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup oil
1 cup coconut
Blend together and bake for 25 minutes (until a toothpick comes out clean)  at 350- I use mini loaf pans or mini bundt pans- whatever you like to make pound cake in. A regular cake pan will be fine, I'm sure.


GLAZE

1 (regular size) can crushed pineapple and juice 

1/2 stick of real butter
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup whipping cream
1 cup coconut - more if you have it and like it
3TB rum extract to add after you have cooked the glaze
 or 1/3 cup rum to add before you bring this to a boil
Boil in a saucepan until thick. If it won't thicken up,whip in some cornstarch until it is a thick, sticky syrup. If you want to add more butter or cream to taste, it will make it runnier, but just whip in more cornstarch as needed to get it thick. Easy Peasy. 

I would think sweetened condensed milk would work pretty good in place of the cream, I just had cream on hand. 

Once it was thick enough for my tastes I poured it over the cake and let it soak in for about an hour as the cake cooled. For safe measure, I poured more topping on after it was cool.

Then I gained about 75 pounds.

Blogging About Blogging

So many people have such great blogs in December. They show the cute gift ideas they have, share their awesome recipes and talk about the fun family times they have.

I am not that blogger.

Well, not this year. 

I've done better in the past, but this year my hands have been a little full. 

This year, I had Matt and Romy sign all of our Christmas cards.

We thought about something awesome like this:

But instead went with a more realistic family picture for the cards....

( I didn't have to try to get anyone into position to pose, go figure.)

This year I have four boxes that have been sitting in my car for two weeks, all addressed and ready to mail, but I have not dropped them off at the post office yet- (sorry Dad and Marla.)

This year I have 4 kids, 1 ex with 9 different flights to  manage and drive people to and from.
 It will just be Matt, myself and the pets this year. We're hoping we were naughty and Santa takes Wrigley and Rosie back to the North Pole or something,

Actaually the pets aren't that bad but Rosie will poo in the girl's closet if you don't keep the door closed at all times and Wrigley will pee the heck out of the bed of anyone she sees boss Romy around-- except me, she saves that for my luggage and it has nothing to do with my bossing of Romy, she just loves to pee in suitcases..

The lesson of this story is to never borrow luggage from the Olsons..

Anyway,

I have been baking. I made yum yummy rum flavored bundt cakes in my new mini bundt cake pan from www.gygi.com  I bought on Small business Saturday. 

Cute, huh? Rum flavored pound cake with a pina colada topping- to die for.

I tried so hard to make thick sugar cookies that Matt's brother Caleb would like, but every batch turns out harder than lumber, I give up. 

My toffee recipe has been wonderful this year,I tweaked my recipe and it hasn't separated since. 

My caramels have been a  dud. The fist batch was fine and I should have left well enough alone, but the kids whined for more and I caved in. The second batch as either a dentists nightmare, or it was liquid after I tried to re-cook it to soften it up. 

I gave up and poured it all into jars and on Sunday we had the very nutritious dinner of chochoalte chip pancakes topped with whipped cream caramel sauce and strawberry syrup.

It was a good thing we had peppermint hot cocoa to wash that all down,lol.

Yes, I'm a terrible mom, but my kids thinks I'm loads of fun.

I've been sewing, I've been knitting, I've been shopping. 

I've been trying to stay warm while getting everything done.

I've been visiting, having the kids help pick out toys for a little girl we are playing Santa for and I've been working on my upcoming RS lesson for next month.

I have been doing.

I just have not been blogging. 

My attention span is more fitting for Twitter these days, but I have my pride.

No Twitter.

But keep up all the great posts and ideas, folks, I love getting inspired and I love (too much) seeing all of your cute things on Pinterest.

Pinterest convinced me to cut my bangs last month and also demand ... er, kindly encourage,  Romy to at least TRY to grow he hair long. There are so many cute hairdos I want to try out on her.

And with that inspiring diatribe, I leave you, hopefully not until past Christmas, but since we don't have any kids here to Santa-fy or surprise, that post may be of a bit of a dud, too.

Anyone want to go with us to see Mission Impossible on Christmas Day?

After that we may go big and hit Arby's or Del Taco afterwards. :)

(I know a guy who works here)

It's not a bad thing when I take a blog break.

Here are some pictures to tide you over until I decide to write posts that make a lick of sense again.

Merry Christmas.

He turned 16! Yikes!

 Crazy lumberjack about to murder a Baskin Robbin's Ice Cream Cake

So good. You have no idea how good, and you never will because we ate them all. 

 MHS Art show, Zane drew and painted Johnny Cash

Romy pretending she was playing the right song. 

She was cute, but she needs to practice,

 She redeemed herself during the singing, :)

And Miss Melody,just for fun....

Visions of Sugar

Matt had a fun idea this morning, after we finished tithing settlement, we loaded up the kids and headed to Draper to try out a gourmet doughnut shop he discovered last week, Beyond Glaze.

There were so many flavors to choose from! They just do one standard doughnut, but the frosting and toppings are what make them special.

Key lime pie, peach cobbler, toasted German chocolate, blueberry, strawberry cream cheese, raspberry mango, apple crisp, peanut butter and jelly.....

They were spendy, but still half the price of the doughnut plant in NYC, so we considered it to be a bargain. 

They were so yummy.

The kids had a great time together.

After we got home we put together our traditional gingerbread houses.

This year we had a few of the kids make gingerbread trains instead, those were easier to set up and Mom spent less time helping the kids build the bases.

I made and burned a batch of toffee afterwards, I've been pretty hit and miss with toffee ever since moving to Utah, I don't know if I am just making a mistake or if the altitude change from AZ to UT has something to do with it. I probably was cursed by the person whose recipe I use and that's why it only turns out about 50% of the time. :)

I have a new recipe I'm going to try this week and hopefully I'll have better results. I'm also going to make buckeyes and try out this recipe: http://www.cookingwithk.net/2009/12/cookie-dough-truffles.html

Cookie dough truffles. 

I think i gained 5 pounds just thinking about them. 

Yum.

Romy Meets a Writer

Tyler Whitesides came to Romy's school yesterday and talked about his book, The Janitors. 

I started reading it to the kids this summer, but when school started, we got so busy we put family reading on the back burner, so we'll pick it up again over the Christmas break.

It's a great book, I've got it on my Kindle, too.

Romy was really excited to meet him and sign her book, she was excited to join the ranks of signed book owners in the family. Matt owns a signed copy of Where the Red Fern Grows as well as a copy of John Scalzi's Fuzzy Nation. We met him at a signing earlier this year. Grey has a signed copy of Old Man's War by  Scalzi and somewhere around this house I have a book signed by Dr.Phil I got back when I use to think the answers lied in self help books and television.

Now I know all the answers lie in Facebook games and chocolate milk.

No really, they do.

Christmas shopping is in full swing. 

 I have never been good at wrapping gifts.

Thank heavens for printed boxes and bags.

Thank you, Tyler Whitesides for visiting Vista Elementary yesterday!

You rock.

 http://www.tylerwhitesides.com/#/author