Joyfully Weary

For me the holidays are the perfect excuse to bake and consume large amounts of sugar. But at our house, when mommy is in the kitchen, everybody is in the kitchen...and our kitchen is tiny.  So I thought it best to come up with a fun way to keep little hands busy. The boys really enjoyed the pumpkins I made for our fridge in October so I knew they'd love a Christmas tree and this time, I took it up a notch by turning it into a game.  for our "game board" i cut a tree, boxes & a circle out of scrapbook paper. the arrow is from scrap cardboard and secured to the circle with a paper fastener.  i then stuck everything to a magnetic adhesive sheet.   the "game pieces" are simply scrapbook embellishments stuck to magnetic disks *i used the magnetic disks instead of an adhesive sheet because they are a stronger magnet* [close up of the spinner] since my boys are 2 & 4 i kept it pretty simple *you may notice i cut a wedge our of the ar...

I believe that foods and flavors have certain seasons. In the summer blueberries and lemons should be thrown in to as many things as possible.  The fall is all about pumpkin and in the winter I'm obsessed with peppermint. It makes a great tea and is perfect in coffee but my favorite way to enjoy peppermint is in cookie form.  Our family has a couple recipes that are our particular favorites, the one I'm sharing today is super easy and fun to make with kids. Husbandie and I made them our first Christmas together and have enjoyed them ever since, we call them candy cane doodles. You start with a basic snickerdoodle dough recipe , omitting the cinnamon and sugar step at the end. Drop the dough in balls on to a cookie sheet and bake 8 minutes.  While your cookies are baking make frosting (we use this recipe ) and smash up a dozen regular size candy canes. Placing the candy canes in a ziploc bag and using a rolling pin works really well, we however, prefer hamme...

I had originally planned to focus on apples for only a week but The Buddy enjoyed a couple of the trays so much that there were a few left unexplored.  Instead of rushing on to the next thing I decided to do a second week of Apples which put the remaining trays to use, and allowed us to do a little cooking. On Monday we made apple cake (following this recipe with just a few adjustments: substituting applesauce for the oil & cutting the sugar in half).  Even with the measurements not being quite exact (Mini Man is a very charismatic pourer) the cake turned out wonderfully. If you make it I highly recommend topping it with some homemade caramel.    The Buddy wasn't sure about the texture of the apples but Mini Man loved every bite...too bad for him Mommy and Daddy ate it all before he could have seconds.  On Wednesday we made applesauce. We didn't use a specific recipe but instead worked from memory, referencing a Sid the Scienc...