My New Favorite Book

Santa was kind enough to bring my new favorite childrens' book to Gretchen last year. Olivia is a lovely little pig with big ideas and and a very pretty wardrobe.

My favorite line is towards the end. When her mother tucks her in at night and says, "You know, you really wear me out. But I love you anyway," Olivia so sweetly responds, "I love you anyway too." Anyone with a preschooler (or really, any energetic child) would appreciate this book. With the limited text, it is fun to as Gretchie what she thinks is happening in the picture.

The biggest laugh from Gretchie comes on the page where Olivia tries on all of her clothes, and one pair of pantyhose.

Two art lessons are included -- a small frame of beautiful Degas ballerinas and a photo of a Jackson Pollack which Olivia states she could recreate. When she tries it out by splattering the wall at home, the next page shows Olivia sitting on the bottom step with just two words. "Time out." I think this one will become a classic at our house.

A little downhill sledding

We have a little bit of a hill in our backyard. It's not fun to mow but is good for other things like rolling down on your side, running down in a sundress a la Laura Ingalls, and sledding. Very slow sledding. Here are some pictures of the fun we had this morning. The fun was followed by shoveling the driveway and hot cocoa, of course.

Erik, showing the girls how it's done.

Taking my turn.

The girls wanted to race. Gretchie won.

Crash landing so as to avoid the swingset.

Gretchen, all smiles.

The hard part.

Quilt

Here's a photo of the baby quilt that I made for the daughter of one of Erik's good friends from the Army. I was a little late getting to her - she was born April 1st of last year -significantly under estimated the time it would take to hand stitch. It's hard to see in the picture but there are little butterflies and paisley shapes that are outlined in stitches. The larger rectangles that look blank in the picture are stitched with flowers and a big butterfly.

It was fun to have Katie hold up the quilt for the picture - I've probably held up a dozen or more for my Mom to take pictures of her quilts.

Snacking Strange

Our Gretchie loves fruit, vegetables and meat. No complaints at all about her eating habits. Compare that to Katie who still to this day prefers plain pasta and ham to anything else.

Tonight for a snack Katie had applesauce and Gretchie requested mushrooms. If that wasn't odd enough, she wanted them sauteed in butter.

I'm sure that I may have some odd snacking habits but sauteed mushrooms takes the cake.

New Recipes

So I tried a couple new recipes for Christmas.

I found a one for Candy Cane cookies in the Nov. 29th issue of Family Circle. They are prettily decorated in the picture accompanying the recipe, mine ended up with a stripe of royal icing down the middle. Royal icing, I've found, tastes much better after the cookies have been frosted and it 'sets' for a good week or so. The cookies themselves were pretty simple, just butter cookies and with the royal icing; perfect with a cup of coffee or hot tea.

The second recipe I tried was from the Pioneer Woman; olive cheese bread. Seriously, if you are a fan of olives, cheese and Italian bread, meander yourself over to her website and use her Recipe Finder to get the recipe - since I made it, the green onions were omitted. I only used half of a loaf (since it was a new recipe and you just never know), using the other half loaf for plain old garlic bread. I did find that the baking time needed extended quite a bit and never did 'brown' but likely would had I used the broiler for a couple minutes. The olive cheese bread was really good and completely disappeared over at my parents' house. I went back for a second piece and was bummed to find the cutting board bare.

The only other things I made were tried and true: chocolate pie with graham cracker crust, almond bark pretzels and peppermint bark.

We had a lovely Christmas, surrounded by family, and now are content to spend a quiet weekend at home. Erik is working on little stuff around the house, the girls are enveloped in "Underdog" upstairs (thank you Jill & Todd!) and I'm half-watching reruns of British comedies on PBS.

According to my sister-in-law Sara, being a fan of quirky British comedies is a King-thing. My personal favorites are short-lived series from the 1970s - Open All Hours and The Good Life. They played regularly on the Denver PBS station when we lived in Colorado, complete with thick accents, crazy organic living inventions, mustard yellow decor, and long flowy costumes (braless, naturally).

I also love the squiggy group of older men on Last of the Summer Wine, the desperate to be upper-crust Hyacinth Bucket (it's Bou-quet!) with her slum-living sisters from Keeping Up Appearances and the blue-haired Betty Slocombe on Are You Being Served.

I'm not quite sure why they completely make me laugh, even after seeing the same episodes over and over again. Could be the absurdity of the shows, the seemingly random plotlines, the fact that the episodes are nearly 30 minutes long rather than the 22 minute American sitcoms and, of course, being on PBS there are no annoying commercials.

My wild and crazy husband and girls are outside in this ridiculously cold weather. They just want to see the snow up close and personal for a little bit. Toss the snow around a little, attempt to rebuild the fort that melted last week.

I am quite content to witness the activity from the warmth of the kitchen. I did volunteer to make some hot cocoa to warm their bones when they return, shivering through the front door.

A Question For You

Out shopping with Angie today, I made a pretty good dent in my Christmas list and have to say that I'm feeling rather Christmasy this evening. So the question I pose to you, my lovely blog readers is: What is your favorite Christmas or Holiday song and why?

Here, I'll start you off with mine, in no particular order.

"O Holy Night" -- it's the big swells of the band, the imagery of the cold and quiet night.

"Silver Bells" -- as sung by my Uncle Eddie, slightly off-beat, Frank Sinatra style.

"What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" by Harry Connick, Jr. -- back about a dozen years ago when Pa and I were dating he had the tape "When My Heart Finds Christmas" by Mr. Connick in his car. It was very sweet and romantic to be serenaded on those cold fall evenings. It's still sweet and romantic, just doesn't happen quite so often these busy days.

Alright, now it's your turn.