O Christmas tree

A little late, but I'm posting some pictures from Christmas. More specifically, pictures of our Christmas tree. We drove to a farm far, far away with our friends Jason and Katherine to find a great tree. And a great tree we found. Now, some of you who are more "glass half empty" people might look at the picture below and think, "Wow, Matt and Kristi, that tree is way too big for your living room!" But those of you who are more "glass half full" people will think, "Now there is a beautiful tree. A little full, maybe. But beautiful."

And if you are familiar with the world's best Christmas comedy movie, "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation," you will recognize how we felt when we saw this tree.

The snow was deep and people with little legs fall over in deep snow.

Charlotte is holding a very sharp saw.

A little artful trimming.

And you thought the tree wouldn't fit in our living room.

The tree had an abnormal distribution of ornaments thanks to our littlest helper.

Look what someone left under the Christmas tree!

Cross country skiing

We took Charlotte cross country skiing a couple of weeks ago when we were all off on a week of "staycation" (rhymes with vacation). For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a staycation is where you go on vacation in your own city. Apparently this has gained a lot more popularity with the economic downturn. We did a lot of nothing, which was nice and relaxing. We also found fun things to do that we don't normally have time to do.

Anyway, we thought we were going to be the ones skiing and put Charlotte in the backpack. But she found some ski poles and decided she needed to go. "These are just my size Mama! See?!" So we took her out on the trails first with us just in our boots. Then when she got tired we brought all her stuff back and rented our own and put her in the backpack.

So excited!

Trying it out.

She's doing it!

She decided she didn't like using the poles. She did awesome and had a great time!

Waffle update!

Charlotte gives the waffles a thumbs up! I thought they were a bit on the yeasty side, but they were very light and crispy. Matt says they were delicious.

And in the morning, we're making waffles!

Charlotte helped me mix up some waffle batter tonight, in preparation for breakfast tomorrow morning. It requires sitting overnight in a warm place. I covered the bowl and placed it next to the heat vent. Charlotte yelled out, "This is the strangest waffle in the WHOLE WORLD!!!!"

I guess we'll see tomorrow.

http://family.go.com/blog/catherinewman/yeasted-waffles-1016825/

Bread so good you will become just a little bit obsessed with it

If you have any ambition in your life to ever try making bread, here is the recipe for you. If you have no ambition in your life to ever try making bread, this is also the recipe for you. Two days ago I made this bread for the first time ever. It makes three loaves per recipe, one to bake and two to put in the fridge to pull out and bake later. Well, later came quickly in our house, as we have now baked all three of the original loaves and I made another batch today and baked two of those loaves. (If you couldn't follow that math, our family has baked 5 loaves of this bread in 3 days). It's that good. And that easy.

http://family.go.com/blog/catherinewman/fantastic-fearless-five-minute-bread-889536/

Charlotte likes to help. And actually, it's easy enough that a 3 year old could almost put it together and mix it by herself. Almost.

Here is the dough, all mixed and ready to sit in front of the warm vent to rise.

And here is the dough after it rose in the bowl, ready to rise for a little bit longer while the oven preheats.

And now the buns are in the oven. And these are the only buns in ovens around here...though Charlotte did start asking yesterday, "When am I going to have a brother or a sister?"

You may wonder about the choice of baking pans. This is how this recipe is supposed to go--in a covered ceramic or Pyrex dish. My first two loaves were made in the Pyrex contraption in the front--one bowl stacked on top of the other. Then today I borrowed two baking dishes from my grandparents down the street so I could increase my productivity. You know, because we need three loaves of bread at a time...

And the finished product!!! Beautiful, crusty, chewy loaves of bread that you will love. And not be able to stop eating. So plan your suppers to center around this bread.

Need I say more?

Cookies Cookies Cookies!

Today was cookie baking day with Grandma Cindy. Before we got started, Charlotte opened a beautiful apron that Grandma made for an early Christmas present!

But then she wasn't interested in baking. She pulled off the apron (bottom right of picture) and sat down to read. Here she is reading part of the Christmas story and she's opened up to her favorite part, King Herod and the Wise Men. What a strange kid.

She wouldn't come in to the kitchen to help until we got to the good part...licking the cookie dough off the beater.

Yum!

Mama and Charlotte

While the cookie dough chilled, we made wreaths (corn flakes and marshmallows). Charlotte was in charge of the red hots. The one right in front of her got a little overloaded.

Then we took a little break to decorate Grandma and Grandpa's Christmas tree. Charlotte had lots of fun playing with the ornaments. Here she is making a rabbit pull a poodle on a sled and to her left is another poodle on a sled. Those silly poodles.

Now that the dough is chilled it's time to roll it out!

Grandma showing Charlotte how to roll it out just right.

Yep, that's a Play-Doh rolling pin!

And after the baking comes the frosting...and the sprinkling...and some more sprinkling...and then just a little bit more.

Until it's just right!

Charlotte's collection of frosted Scottie dogs. She did them all by herself. Nobody else will want to eat them as there was a fair amount of licking fingers that went into the making of these.

The finished product(s)! What a lot of work. What a lot of FUN! What a lot of deliciousness!

Joy

I was teaching Charlotte to sing "Joy to the World" this week. She paused and said, "Josh has two children." Just when I was about to say "What?!" she finished "and his wife's name is Joy!" Ah yes, she made the connection between the name of the song and our friends Josh and Joy in Duluth.

I then asked her if she knew what the word joy meant. She didn't, so I told her joy meant really really happy, that joy was bigger than happy.

She replied, "Oh, like when you're prancin' around?!"