Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Vol. 7

This morning before church, I made french toast and Christmas ham for breakfast. The boring members of the family had french toast made with plain bread, but Danny and I had Panettone french toast. The recipe follows:

8 slices bread (Panettone or dense white)

4 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp. vanilla (I used my home-made vanilla!)

2 tsp. cinnamon

Maple syrup

Powdered sugar

Beat eggs, then add milk, vanilla, and cinnamon. Dip bread on both sides and brown in pan. Enjoy with powdered sugar dusted on top and maple syrup. Yum!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Vol. 6

Zachary came home the day after Christmas, and we opened presents to and from him. We;re so glad he's home! We spent the rest of the day shopping and going to soccer practice. Back to the hectic pace of normal life, I guess!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Vol. 5

A new Creamer Christmas tradition - dinner at a Chinese restaurant and a movie. We had a great time, and Sherlock Holmes was well worth the wait.

We hope everyone's Christmas was as wonderfully relaxing and stress-free as ours was!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Vol. 4

Christmas Day, finally! our day started with a Creamer Christmas tradition, pinwheels. this is an easy, tasty, and non-messy breakfast to have white opening presents. Basically, you just roll out crescent dough, pressing the seams together. Then you spread out 1/2 lb. (1/2 tube) Jimmy Dean maple sausage. Roll into a log lenthwise, and cut into 1/2-inch rounds. Bake for about 13-15 minutes at 350 degrees or until golden brown. Delicioso!


Then, we opened out presents, from Santa and all but Zachary's. Danny was excited about his hot wheels dinosaur...

Megan loved her hippie nutcracker...

and George loves his set of Law Enforcement Memorial lapel pins.

Sorry, not publishing any pics of my in my pjs, but trust me, I loved my gifts.
We all loved all of our gifts!

Especially Harley, who literally went crazy over her toy soldier. we inspected the carnage later, and...

Poor toy soldier.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Vol. 3

Christmas Eve was filled with an attempt to go to church (it was packed and rainy, maybe next year), a lasagna dinner, opening new pajamas for everyone, and putting out cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for reindeer. The kids were so excited they could barely stand still.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Vol. 2

The night before Christmas Eve, and George and I spent a quiet night of wrapping and getting ready for Christmas - the kids were at Gran-ma and Papa's house! We got everything done, and took some time to get some pics of the decorations.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Vol. 1

The week of Christmas, we had a relaxing time around town. Our first stop was Dorothy B. Oven park, for a little Christmas light watching. It is hard to convey the beauty of these lights through pictures, but I think George did a fine job. These are some great pics. It was cold, but our love kept us warm! (Cheesy, huh?)

Christmas Baking this weekend

Today after church and into tonight, the kids and I did some Christmas baking. We started out by baking ginger bread cookies,


and iced them in very interesting ways,


Then we moved on to one of the most addictive substances known to man, or at least to us - Chex Muddy Buddies, or as my friend Kara likes to call it, "Dog Chow." The recipe is on the back of the Rice Chex box, but I'm sharing anyway.

9 Cups Corn, Rice, Wheat or Chocolate Chex cereal (or combination - I use 3 cups each of corn rice and wheat)

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup creamy natural peanut butter

1/4 cup butter or margarine

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1. Into a large mixing bowl, measure cereal; set aside.

2. In 1-quart microwavable bowl, microwave chocolate chips, peanut butter and butter uncovered on High 1 minute; stir. Microwave about 30 seconds longer or until mixture can be stirred smooth. Stir in vanilla. Pour mixture over cereal, stirring until evenly coated. Pour into 2-gallon resealable Ziploc bag.

3. Add powdered sugar. Seal bag: shake until well coated. Spread on waxed paper to cool. Store in an airtight container in refrigerator.

I can't wait until Christmas Day!

The new Sherlock Holmes movie comes out on Christmas Day, and we are all excited. He is one of our favorite literary characters of all time. The movie creates a new cinematic type of Holmes, and it looks exciting and action-packed. It is also directed by Guy Ritchie in a very Guy Ritchie-style. As a sidebar, Ritchie also happens to be a fantastic looking Brit who is also recently single again - What was Madonna thinking? Leaving Guy Ritchie for A-Rod? Anyway, we're counting the days.

Happy Birthday, Danny Boy!

OK, so his birthday was on the 12th, but we've been so busy, it took us a while to download the pictures from his party. I can't believe my little Danny is six years old! He had the rockin-est party at Zoinks. Loud, crazy, chaotic - a little boy's dream. We had a total of 30 people, and George got some good pics, but I have to pick out the best ones. Most of the kids were too busy bouncing to pose.

He's too big!

Liam (or Baby Liam as Danny calls him) came. Isn't he cute?


So did big bro Alex. I love the hat.

Annabelle was the ham of the night, it was hard to pick which picture cuz she was in so many!

Maya had a blast, too!

The "Usual Suspects", our neices Kendall, Paige and Savannah were a big help once we were in the party room. They helped pass out things in the chaos.

Cowards!

Megan was so happy for Danny. She got so excited, she started the "we want cake" chant during the cutting-of-the-ice-cream-cake saga. George wanted to throttle the chanters, but when I told him Megan started it, he couldn't be mad any more.

Can you read his thoughts? I'm not used to being the center of attention so I'm going to sit here with this nervous look on my face until everyone stops looking at me. He got over it pretty quickly.

See? Of course, his friend Noah was there to provide support.

He had a blast, and I hope he remembers this birthday for a long time. I'm not doing that again any time soon!

Giada's White Bean Chicken Chili

Today is rainy and cold, and I had to forego two social engagements (TPD's Christmas dinner and Danny's class Christmas party) because of it. As a backup, I brought the White Bean Turkey Chili that I made and froze a month ago. One of George's favorites, it is based on Giada De Laurentiis' White Bean Chicken Chili, but I can never find ground chicken when I'm looking for it. It was so good, I had to share the recipe (the only substitute I make is turkey for the chicken). I tried to snap a picture of it, but it mysteriously disappeared from the bowl before I could get a good shot.

I guess working the camera one-handed while eating might make that happen, huh?

A happy ending to a tough Tuesday...

Last Tuesday, I woke up with a migraine (probably from all of the rain), and threw some clothes on to take the kids to school. As we were pulling in to the school drop-off area, the van started making very loud breakage-type noises. I pulled out of the school, and the temperature gauge started to rise, eventually stopping above the danger zone. The engine seized, and I pulled off onto a side street. After a walk home, a shower, a long wait for the tow truck, a trip to the bank, and about 5 hours at the Toyota dealership, we have a new van. I guess it was worth the horrible day to get the reward, but George was not safe that night as my head and my mood were both raging!

Isn't she beautiful? My color, too!

We miss you Mike!

One of George's fellow officers, Mike Saunders, was killed on Saturday in a hit-and-run accident while he was walking in the morning before work. The Democrat has posted the story here. Mike was very special to George and me because he was the other officer present on the night we met. We will miss him, and we hope he is smiling his big beautiful smile in heaven.

The rest of November in a nutshell

Oh my goodness, has time flown. Since Veteran's Day, we have been so busy, it is all a blur. George got some good pics of some of the events, so here's a quick recap.


1. The weekend after Veteran's Day, Danny's friend Emily had her sixth birthday party at the park, and the two of them spent nearly the whole time climbing to the top of the rope ladders. Megan had a great time drinking her favorite beverage (can you guess what it is?) and Zachary took breaks from homework to sit by the kids and harass them. It was a good time.

That same weekend, Harley got a new bed that she absolutely loves. I am so glad, because our new couches are off limits!

Danny had his Kindergarten play on the 17th. He got to play a veggie that is his favorite color of all!

Before Thanksgiving, Danny's afterschool teachers outdid themselves on the face paint, his favorite after school activity. it took two days to bring his face back to its natural color.

Thanksgiving Day, we had a "feast" (as Danny likes to call it) and got so tired we forgot all of the plans we had for the rest of the day in our mad rush for the sleeping couch. There is such a thing as too much good food!

The plans, a walk in the park and cleaning out the garage, were completed on Friday, Saturday and Sunday after Thanksgiving. We had such a great time, and it was such a beautiful weekend,
that we didn't want to be inside at all.

My beautiful boy,

and girl,

and our wonderful boys in a footrace. Guess who won!

George and I ripped out all of the junk from the the garage and he and Zachary put together Gorilla shelving and a new workbench. He is so proud of the way his garage turned out.

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!