Merry Christmas with Chimes

Here are a few of my Activity Days girls.  We learned to play several Christmas songs with chimes this last month and then performed them during the ward Christmas program at their party.  These girls are full of so much excitement and chatter.  It's amazing how happy these girls are and I will miss working with them.

Gingerbread houses

This year Christmas is falling two days before we move all our belongings into storage...and so this is our Christmas tree.  Isn't it cute?  This is a tree that my Grandma H. gave me last year.  It has fiber-optics in it and changes color.  We put it up in our bedroom and love to look at the lights at night before going to sleep.

Sunday evening we went over to a friends' house.  She had her college sons home and decided to make keep tradition alive and make gingerbread houses (with graham crackers).  I haven't made a gingerbread house in such a long time...probably since I was a small child and I couldn't believe how excited I was to make one.  The above picture is mine.  I actually got the idea from one of the temples in Germany.  I can't remember which one, I just remember looking through the Ensign that focused on temples and seeing a similar design.

And this is SM's gingerbread house.  Notice the "grass" and the bushes on the side of the house.  Very cute!

He really did want to start eating it right away.  He did wait a couple of days.

And here I am with my house.  I am so proud!  (Notice that my house has some topiary bushes in the front...those are not green snowmen).

Dinner at Bethlehem

Sunday evening we were able to have dinner at our friends' house.  Each December they hold a dinner that they call their "Dinner in/at Bethlehem."  We were asked to dress appropriately in attire that reminded us of Bethlehem.  SM wasn't very excited about dressing up but he did and had a great evening.

Here's our hostess...doesn't she look cute with a bright pink towel?  Our hostess has become one of my favorite friends.  Isn't it nice to have friends?

Here's my friends' daughter eating some pita bread.  For our Dinner at Bethlehem, we ate lamb, pita, hummus, goat cheese, yogurt and figs.   We ate everything by candle light and had a fun time.

And here's the two of us.  SM was being silly...seriously, he only did this face when getting his picture taken.  For the rest of the evening he was very pleasant and enjoyed himself.

Games

SM loves games.  He has been collecting them for quite a few years.  Since we are packing getting ready to move, I took this picture of the games before SM put them in boxes.  Doesn't that look like a lot of fun?  Some of my favorite games aren't even in this photo.  Have you ever heard of Stone Age or Alhambra?  What about Endeavor or Ra?  How about Hoity Toity or Metro?  Those are some of the fun games that we try to play as much as possible. 

Old Town Alexandria

SM attended a conference in Old Town Alexandria (VA) over the weekend.  This was the hotel where they had the conference and where they gave us a room.  I think it's called the Morris House.  This place was pretty posh (is that a word?).  The butler also was the valet.  He brought our luggage to our room and parked the car.

Here are a couple pictures of our room.  The fireplace wasn't real but very beautiful.  On the left side of the picture you can see a door into the bathroom.  The coolest thing about this bathroom was that the toilet flushed so quietly.  It was really neat.

Saturday during the day while SM was in his conference, I went walking around Old Town Alexandria.  Without knowing it, I came across a parade.  I can't tell you exactly 'what' the parade was...but...there were a lot of men in kilts and lots of dogs.  I think it was a dog and Scottish parade.

Here's a picture the some of the dogs.  Different groups of dogs would walk in the parade.  It was lots of fun.  Some of the smaller dogs were wearing kilts and Santa outfits.

Have you ever heard Christmas carols being played by bagpipes?  It's kind of creepy and really cool all at the same time.  I did feel sorry for all the men in kilts because the temperature was pretty low and then there was a breezy.   Brrr!

We also had some Scottish royalty walk in the parade.

And we can't forget the different clans walking in the parade, showing off their family tartan.

I had to include this picture in the group.  For those of you completely lost...this is a picture of the Loch Ness Monster...otherwise known as Bessie.  Isn't that fun?!!

And here's the wharf of Old Town Alexandria.  The boats that were docked had Christmas lights and decorations all over them. 

Flannel Scraps

About a month ago I posted about making a quilt top out of flannel scraps that I had left-over from the baby blankets, receiving blankets and burp clothes that I enjoy making.  Well, I also mentioned that I was working on a back to go on the front that I had made out of the flannel scraps.  Well, here's what I ended up with...and since it definitely doesn't look like a back to a quilt, looks like I made two small quilt tops.  I do like that it was made out of scraps and that my scrap pile is now very small.  Hopefully in the upcoming months I'll be able to make them both into quilts.

Sauerkraut

Living near Amish country has made me want to try some new things.  My grandmother would make sauerkraut when I was a child and I would go over to her house and she'd share it with me.  I always loved the squeaky feel of the cabbage and the salty taste of the sauerkraut.  Well, as we've taken many visitors to Amish country, I found a store (Lehman's) that had crock's and a cabbage shredder and my dear husband bought them for me.

I went online and read about making sauerkraut and then tried it myself.  Two things I found out from my first try at sauerkraut...one, I am not very strong.  It was difficult for me to shred that whole head of cabbage.  The three blades on the cabbage shredder are very sharp and it is recommended that you use Kevlar gloves while handling the blades.  Now, I don't have Kevlar gloves and so I was trying to be very careful AND shred the cabbage, which I did do, but it was very tough.  The second thing I found out is that I used too much salt.  It is stressed that you need to keep all the cabbage in it's own juices so that things ferment and not mold, so I would add extra salt to make sure the cabbage would weep out extra juice.  Well, I got carried away.   But  I found that if I rinse my sauerkraut before eating it, it's not too salty to eat.  I've been able to eat it raw and in a cooked dish.  It's really yummy and I will be making sauerkraut in my future.

Here's the cabbage before I covered it with a dish and a weight so that it could ferment for a week.  Yum!

Thankgiving 2010

SM and I joined two other families for Thanksgiving this year.  SM volunteered to make an English apple pie...which means to him an apple pie without the pie filling sauce or in his words, apple pie without "pie snot."  We tried a new pie crust recipe (one that  his sister recommended) and we loved it.

I went to a pie making class this fall and the lady teaching the class said that she always piled her apples really high because they bake down and she loves lots of apples in her pie.  So, we tried to do the same.  Here's the pie before we put the crust over the top.  We used twelve LARGE Granny Smith apples in the pie.  My biggest worry was how long to bake the pie.  So, I used my nose.  When a baking dish is almost done, the aroma from the oven seems to intensify and so I used this as my method, though, as we were taking the pie to Thanksgiving, I was still worried that it wasn't cooked all the way...but luckily, it was.  You could serve this pie with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream, but SM and I prefer just pouring cream over your own piece of pie.

And here's the table of Thanksgiving food.  Doesn't that look amazing?!  The apple pie is also on the table, just in the middle of all the food.  I think it was put there just to look nice because we had to wait a while after eating our meal before anyone had room for pie.