What Child Is This

Sooo... a question for my talented friends out there... What photo editing software do you use?  I have been using this wonderful free one... and now they have decided to charge for it.  So I thought I would check out other options.  

Onto other things though.  It is the Sunday before Christmas and I have been waiting for some snow to take pictures of my kids in their Christmas clothes.  But the weather man has thwarted me.  And despite a dead looking background- my kids still look pretty cute.  

If you look closely you can see the shiner on Ty's right eye.  He lost a fight to Kate last night.  Hee hee.  I told him that next time he better pick on someone his own size.

Here Kate is trying to show me her "sparkly" shoes...

And blowing me a kiss...  Something tells me we are in seriously TROUBLE with this little one!

Ryan can't see a camera and make a normal face.  I think he gets it from his dad.

And when I do get a good one... I notice (obviously too late) the food he has crusted on his lower lip.  Sigh.

The hair on this kid is unbelievable.  I'm totally jealous.

Again- emphasis on the sparkly shoes... though paired with these socks I'm having images of The Wizard of Oz... Wicked Witch of the East anyone?

Marshmallow World

Or maybe a brownie world.  Now THAT would be worth writing a song about!  Anyway- I don't post a lot of recipes- but every once in a while I make something that is so fantastically good that I have to share.  I present to you a Christmas Brownie.  What makes it Christmasy you ask?  The crumbled candy canes.  Other than that- you could probably make this any time of year and be the hero.  

The idea is simple enough.  Brownie.  Frosting.  Chocolate Ganache.  Easy peasy right?  Right.  I'll show you.

Start with a brownie.  You can use the store-bought kind or the mix or even one you made from scratch.  I'm not picky- and the best part about this recipe  it can be made g-free or g-ful.  It just depends on the type of brownie you make!  Mine is obviously G-Free.  I used a recipe from a girlfriend- therefore, I will not be sharing it here.  Sorry!

But moving on.  You have your brownie.

To make the frosting you will need:
1/2 cup Crisco
2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
2 drops red food coloring (optional)

Start with your Crisco and powdered sugar and mix.  Slowly add in the heavy cream- you may need more- it just depends on the consistency you want.  I don't care how thick it is- just so long as you can spread it.  Add your peppermint extract and food coloring.  Frost brownies.

Chocolate Ganache:
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup heavy cream

Melt in a double boiler and pour over frosting.  While this is hardening, crush your candy canes and sprinkle on top.  Viola.  Awesome Christmas-y Brownies worthy of any holiday party!

Santa Claus is Comin'

Each year, my uncle Brent and his wife Lori host the Newren Family Christmas-palooza.  Our family has gotten huge- hence the "palooza".  

Despite Santa's tight schedule this time of year- he always carves out time to visit our little gathering of hooligans to say hello and give a small gift to the little ones.  This year was no different.  The kids gathered excitedly around the big man and waited anxiously for their names to be called.  

Kate was anxiously awaiting her name to be called... but kept a respectful distance.

Ty raced up to the front when his name was called and told Santa in a satisfied voice that he was "kind of good."  At least he's trying to be honest right?

Kate cautiously approached the booming Santa and sat on his lap for a total of .05 seconds before she decided she could do without the candy cane.

You'll notice Ryan is conspicuously absent from these photos... That's because he was nowhere to be found when his name was called.  I found him curled in a ball behind my chair.

Oh Christmas Tree

Deckin' the Halls

I love shortcuts.  I take them whenever I can- because they make my life a little easier.  Not that my life is particularly hard (my husband always likes to point that out), but I love anything that saves me a few minutes.  

That said- I have always bought the little gingerbread house kit at the grocery store or Costco each December, and brought it home for my little gremlins to decorate.  My issue this year was pretty obvious.  The store-bought gingerbread house was a veritable wheat-y, gluten-eous mess that wasn't going to cross the threshold of my door.  Which left me with the following choice:  no gingerbread house/ no funny pictures/ no goofy centerpiece for December or I make one myself.  I shuddered at the thought.  Real gingerbread?  Do I look like Martha Stewart?  

I fired up Google one night and downloaded a PDF for a house design.  And got a gluten free gingerbread recipe from a girlfriend.  I went to the store and bought all the GFree candies I could- then set to work the next morning.  

Things did NOT go to plan.  The roof ended up being WAY too big for the house, and the pitch was WAY too steep.  Two things that did not bode well for our little house.  In fact- maybe we should have taken this as a forewarning of things to come.  I "glued" the house together with royal icing- Shaun didn't think Gorilla Glue was the way to go (though I thought the idea had merit), and improvised the roof issue.  The house now looked as though it had a large hole... but it looked decorate-able.  

I readied the candy...

And we set to work!

Kate soon got bored with the decorating and started chugging candy...

The finished product was gorgeous.  Hansel and Gretel couldn't have asked for a more beautiful piece of candy-front property.  We left the house to dry and I sent the kids downstairs for a shower and to put their pj's on.  By the time they made it back upstairs however... disaster had struck.  

Better luck next year.  :)

Silent Night

Holiday Heartburn

I'm slowly working on getting a few pictures up on the blog of our holiday decorations and family traditions- Someday when we look back at these we'll have to smile right?  Even though now- it kind of gives me heartburn and a headache.  But I figure if that's all I've got this far into December, I'm doing pretty well.  Shaun starts twitching in November when the stores start playing Christmas music and he goes downhill from there.  :)

This year is the first year since we've had kids that I dared pull out my Grandma Newren's Dicken's Village.  She and my grandpa used to make ceramics and sell them at local craft fairs.  The kiln has been long gone, but she saved a few pieces to pass onto the grandkids.  I was one of a lucky few to inherit a Dicken's Village.  I can remember going to my grandma's house and laying on the floor for HOURS just looking at her village.  I would make up little scenarios in my head about the people in the village... which was really easy.  My grandma and grandpa used to have three Christmas trees in their living room and they had a massive village to go underneath all of them- there was snow and skating ponds and even a little mural my grandpa painted to go on the wall behind the village- it depicted a little local ski hill.  It was awesome and in short- one of my very favorite things about Christmas.

But as it is made of glass and I have three rambunctious little kids... I have been terrified to pull it out.  My oldest begs each year for me to get it out- he's only seen it in boxes... and this year I succumbed.  It's gorgeous and every time I look at it I smile.  But it still gives me heartburn.

   

Haircuts

What do you guys do to get ready for the holidays?  One of the first things on my list (and it's a long one) is to get into the salon for haircuts.  Does this sound silly to you?  Maybe... but I HATE it when you go to take pictures at Christmas parties and Christmas morning and the kids look reminiscent of Chewy on Star Wars.  So now I make sure that at the very least- the boys get a quick hair cut the first week of December.

They LOVE the girl we go to- her name is Jamie and I'm pretty sure that both of the boys have a slight crush on her.  Ryan brings her flowers from the yard during spring and summer.  I'm actually pretty impressed with both boys when we go- they just sit in the little chair and do their thing.  Love those two!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Soo... I know I'm a little behind.  I've been debating.  I officially ran out of space on my blog about two weeks ago and I have been trying to decide if it was worth it to buy some additional space for a couple bucks a month OR do I start over.  It was a hard decision.  I hate the idea of spending money that has no foreseeable end... I just have to pay $2 every month for the rest of forever?!  It sounds daunting.  Not that two bucks is a lot of money... but just pay it FOREVER?  But the alternative... Start over on something that i have been working on for the last five years?  No.  So I paid my $2.  And you get Thanksgiving pictures!

We went to my in-laws house in Idaho to celebrate this year.  Unfortunately Shaun had to work the day after Thanksgiving this year so we didn't get to stay the entire weekend like we would have liked- but it was still really nice to see everyone for a couple of days.  

Because we were not at home, my mother in law had the unfortunate task of trying to not only feed a zillion people, but she also had to figure out a few gluten free options too.  Thankfully- she seemed up to the task... at least for some of the dinner options.  I offered to make our own stuffing, potatoes and pie.  It was a good trade.

See, here's the thing- in our day to day lives here in Salt Lake, I don't think a whole lot about being a Celiac anymore.  Well- really- I guess I think about it every day since I have to make the meals in our house- but to really sit and think about it- we really don't.  It has gone the way of laundry and homework- it's just part of our daily routine.  But then something special comes along- like a holiday (Thanksgiving in this case) and I feel a little guilty.  Because I passed this stupid disease along to my cute little boy.  And it makes his life a little bit harder and a lot different than that of his grandma's and grandpa's and cousins, etc.  Luckily for me- he seems up to the task.  But I still feel bad- so I am grateful for my mother in law allowing me into her very busy kitchen on a very busy day to cook and bake for my little boy.  To allow me to give him some semblance of "normal."  Because of my efforts and her graciousness, Ty was able to have gluten free/ dairy free stuffing (which was phenomenal by the way) and gluten/diary free pumpkin pie.  (Pause to listen to the round of applause sounding now)

While Jacki and I were at work in the kitchen- my cute sister in law put the kids to work making decorations for our holiday feast.  The kids loved it!  There were pictures to color and letters to cut out.  There were word searches and mazes and tic tac toe games...  It was so fun to see them all hard at work and then to see the fruits of their labors hung up all around the dining room.

This is our cousin, Deja...  She is just 6 months older than Kate and I love getting her together with my kids- she gets along so well with all three!  I just wish we lived closer so they could play together more often!

And baby Krew... though he ate more crayons than he colored with...

After our fantastic feast- we headed outside to clear our heads and to play.  Ty got a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas last year (anyone seeing Ralphie right now?), but we only let him pull it out when we are safely out of city limits and out in the country.  So every time we head to Grandma's house- it's one of the first things he asks for when we get out of the car.  His dad is quite the marksman and is pretty happy to oblige most of the time.  Ty is actually getting pretty good too- he hits the box (target) most of the time now!  Of course- Ryan is never one to be outdone by Ty for long and he asked his dad to help him shoot the target too.  I think he missed the box every time he pulled the trigger- but the smile on his face was priceless...  Actually... his face throughout the entire process was pretty funny.  Case in point- check out his "concentration" look here as he tries to hold the gun, aim and pull the trigger...

Keep at it bud- you are only four!

And lastly- my sweet sister in law asked me to snap a few family pictures while we were there- and of course I said yes!  When you see these pictures you'll know why- they are SOO cute!  Who wouldn't want to take pictures of them!?

Anyway- I'm back and should probably blog more often now that I am paying for the stupid thing... So hopefully you'll see more of me!

I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving and let's bring on Christmas!!