Holiday baking!

Baking and the holidays seem to go hand in hand. Adam loves spending time with us in the kitchen and he is becoming quite the little chef! We whipped up quite a few treats this holiday season. Adam is becoming the king of chocolate chip cookies. He simply laughs at the recipe which simply suggests a mere half a cup of chocolate chips. An entire bag (or more) seems to be his secret recipe and I'm cool with that.

We also had a marathon baking night prepping goodies for my co-workers. I don't get to spoil them with treats very often, so I look forward to going all out to bake up breads and truffles for them each Christmas.

It's not the holidays until the kitchen is dusted in flour, the oven smells of fresh baked goodies, and you've licked about a dozen spoons! :)

Thanksgiving Preparations...

Ah Thanksgiving, my most favorite day of the year! However, I think the day before Thanksgiving has to come in a close second. The anticipation of the big day paired with all the fun prep work. Yep, you read that right. I just love all the chopping, slicing, mixing, table setting, magazine reading, recipe searching, etc. that goes along with preparing a big Thanksgiving feast! 

Andy and I were so looking forward to hosting both of our families, a total of 12 guests, in our new home. We kicked things off with overnight guests, Kathleen & Olivia. Adam and Olivia had so much fun playing together and Kathleen proved quite useful in the kitchen assisting Andy with stuffing preparations. Meanwhile I was able to get a breakfast casserole made, serving dishes organized, and a sour cream apple crumb pie made and baked! 

Thursday morning we woke up bright and early with quite a bit already knocked off the to-do list. The kids did great with their little sleepover in Adam's room. I overheard Adam reading to Olivia, it was too sweet! 

We got right back to work, but of course we paused to catch the exciting beginning to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade!! (Three excited kiddos were watching) ;)

Andy and I decided to do dueling turkeys, mine in the oven with his family's stuffing recipe and his on the grill with my mom's oyster stuffing. It was fun and provided us with plenty of turkey for everyone to enjoy. 

Adam and Olivia were a big help tearing the bread for the oyster stuffing. They are just too cute in their aprons!

It was a fun and busy Thanksgiving morning, but I wouldn't have it any other way! 

Happy Birthday Roomie...I mean Dad/Grandpa!

Birthdays used to be a great excuse to get the family together for dinner, of course now we have dinner together as a big family every night, but that didn't make Grandpa's birthday any less special.  

Adam and Olivia got to help make the birthday cupcakes, which I have to say were some of the best I've ever had! Chocolate cake with crushed thin mints and a little creme de' mint to add some extra minty pleasure and then oreo cookie frosting....wowza! 

Adam and Olivia were great present presenters and they both even picked out the gifts they gave to Grandpa (a golf shirt from Adam and a stuffed teddy bear from Olivia, because, you know, even Grandpa's should have stuffed bears to sleep with...duh!).  

It was a a great celebration for a GREAT grandpa/dad/roomie! ;) 

Cookies for Santa...

After seeing how much fun Adam had decorating the gingerbread house I knew that decorating cookies for Santa was going to be a big hit. Sadly, I did not do a very good job with baking the cookies (I blame store bought dough and over crowding, ha) but we were able to salvage a few, and let's be honest there are only so many cookies Santa can eat while finding his way to all those houses!

As usual, Adam was very particular with his decorating, being sure to frost the entire cookie and places each little sprinkle just so...

He insisted on testing one of the cookies to be sure it was good enough for Santa...a sneaky trick I'm certain he learned from me. ;)

When all was said and done we had a lovely plate of cookies ready to leave out on Christmas Eve.

Gingerbread house...

We have had so much fun with Adam in the kitchen this past year. He loves helping out and I love that we're starting him young, boosting his cooking confidence and hopefully grooming a very good chef all at the same time!

I knew he was definitely ready to tackle decorating a gingerbread house and he did not disappoint. He was so precise with his candy placement and only snuck a bite or two! 

The house didn't turn out nearly as beautiful as the picture on the box, but I'm going to blame the funky icing they provided. :) Maybe next year we'll do it from scratch with our own icing, but the $5.00 sub-par kit still managed to provide two evenings of holiday family fun, I'll call that a success!

Party favors...

I love that Adam's birthday kicks off autumn.  It's the start of my absolute favorite four months of the year.  It's all I can do to make it to September before lighting my fall scented candles (Autumn Wreath, Spiced Pumpkin, Sage & Cinnamon, to name a few) and there is nothing better than hanging my fall wreath on the front door.  So when it came time to come up with a party favor for Adam and Ava's birthday party, I knew it had to be something that would help their friends welcome in this wonderful time of the year.

After throwing out a few ideas, we settled on mini-caramel apple kits.  Everyone went home with an apple, lollipop stick, caramels, and an assortment of fun toppings to roll their gooey caramel apple in. 

I loved how they turned out and I hope everyone enjoys this fun fall activity.  With the leaves starting to change colors it's a sure sign that caramel apples, pumpkins, and all those yummy smelling candles are ready to make their grand entrance! 

Happy (beach) birthday Momma!

Today starts the beginning of a month of birthdays and it also just happens to be my mom's birthday.  What better way to celebrate than with a pre-birthday celebration at the beach!?

Adam helped make Grandma's birthday cupcakes, chocolate cake with vanilla icing, per the birthday girl's request. Adam and I discussed it and thought we should jazz up the recipe a bit by adding crushed up oreos to the batter.  Delicious and what could be more fun that smushing up oreos? 

We serenaded the birthday girl with a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday" and Adam then assisted with blowing out the candles.  There were smiles all around and it was a perfect (early) start to the September birthday club!

Happy birthday Mom/Grandma, we all love you very much!

Next Food Network Star?!

Now that Adam has mastered the fine culinary art of making "samaliches," we figured it was time to graduate to the next level...baking treats for Liddy. 

We didn't have the necessary ingredients to make Liddy Cakes, but we did have some very ripe bananas and so Andy and his Sous Chef, Adam, aproned up and got to work.

What could be better than squishing bananas between your fingers?

Or getting to scoop flour and pour it into a bowl full of squishy bananas?

It's all almost as fun as getting to use an electric hand mixer! 

We might have had four messy hands to clean up, but we had one happy Liddy!!