Christmas

We had an amazing blessed Christmas. The kids were full of wonder and joy. Here is a play by play.

Christmas Eve day - My parents and sister arrived along with a dusting of snow. The sky was a steely gray and all of a sudden it felt like the dead of winter. Thanks to Jeff's dad we had a roaring fire with some lovely wood that he had brought us a week ago. Jac and Mia were wonderfully entertained by Aunt Daphne and Papa and Gee Gee. They played chase games and generally showed off for an hour or so. We had our traditional Christmas Eve fare for dinner, which are appetizers. I made meatballs and seared tuna and we had a veggie tray and a meat and cheese plate. Followed up by some Christmas cookies and chocolate, everyone was well fed.

Christmas morning - It took awhile to get the kids to bed, of course. I remember it being impossible to fall asleep on Christmas Eve as a kid. Amazingly enough, we all slept in on Christmas until 8:00 am, which is absolutely unheard of. It was lovely and eventually I had to whisper in Jac's ear, "do you think Santa came last night"? That roused him, he was going to go straight downstairs but I told him to wake up Mia.

The two of them carefully walked downstairs, unsure of themselves. They came into the "cars" room (we call our front living room the cars room) and saw all of the presents. They were a bit overwhelmed. They got over that pretty quickly and wanted to dig into gifts. We all got into it and it went pretty quickly. There wasn't a huge amount of coaxing in order to get them to open their presents. They got hung up on a couple that they wanted to check out, I believe Jeff had to read one of the new books to Mia before she would move on. All in all, it was a wonderful morning.

Jeff and I went to noon mass and it was wonderful. We were able to find a seat easily and the contemporary band made the music beautiful. The snow was falling pretty fast while we were out but not enough to accumulate. For Christmas dinner, we had ham and cheesecake for dessert our Carey family tradition.

All in all we had a fantastic time with our family and a wonderful Christmas. We are so blessed to be able to provide what we do for our family and it is overwhelming at times to realize that many are not this blessed.

Over the weekend we were able to spend a couple of days with Jeff's family also. We had some very interesting conversations that I will be thinking about for awhile. We exchanged gifts and ate well. Jac and Mia love playing with their cousins and try and keep up with all the older kids. I do hope that your Christmas was wonderful as well.

Update - We got our electric fence fixed yesterday for a very reasonable amount. Our collar works and I got a quick lesson on how to train for the fence. Jeff talked to the manager at the rescue group and he asked if we would be interested in taking Casey for the weekend, as her foster family is out of town for the weekend and she will be boarding at the rescue. We of course are very interested and so will probably have a furry guest for the weekend! She does have to go back to the rescue next week to finish her heartworm treatment and we will still need to have a home visit. But all in all things are falling into place very quickly. They would like to see Casey with us as she is a good fit for our family. I have a feeling that after the weekend we will all be madly in love with Casey.

Update on the Pet Situation

I'm back! It was a wonderful holiday and so much fun and love was given and received. It was nice to see most of our family and spend a lot of quality time talking and playing games. We can talk about all of that later. Right now, here is an update on where we stand with the dog situation that I wrote about before Christmas.

Jeff and I tend to procrastinate, or at least it may look like procrastination from an outsider looking in. However, once a decision has been made we both go forward full force. On our way to Christmas at Jeff's family we stopped at a Golden Retriever Rescue and met a few dogs. We were able to see one dog in particular that we were interested in, Casey. Here is a picture of her. Casey is a young female, probably less than two years old, they think she was probably someone's pet but they never claimed her. She came in heart worm positive and is still receiving treatment. Casey is a wiggly girl who has a wonderful thick blond coat and is just happy to see people. She was great with the kids, and it was nice to see they weren't scared of her at all. Although they did learn quickly to stay away from the tail, it can be pretty weapon like when Casey gets excited.

The first think we have to do for the rescue group is address our fence. We have an electric fence that is broken, so the company is coming out to fix it this afternoon (although now it is snowing, not sure how that works). Then the rescue has to do a home visit and make sure we aren't running a puppy mill here. We have been through all of this before, it may seem crazy to non dog people, or even non rescue people. But these dogs have been through so much and the rescue group's objective is to find them a forever home where they will be indoors and part of the family. The group wants to find homes for these dogs, but their goal is to improve the situation of the dog and ensure a good fit. For instance, they would never give us a 90 lb boy who has so much energy and muscle and needs a five mile run every day. With a four year old and a three year old, it just doesn't make sense, and they understand that the likelihood of the dog and the family being happy depends on how well suited we are for each other, versus does the dog look cute online or whether or not we always wanted a boy, etc etc. Our wishes are important but not nearly as important as the needs of the dog. If only all decisions we made in life were so well thought through with an advocate on the other end.

So after today we should have a working fence, cross your fingers. And luckily the previous owner's left all of the collars for the device so we don't even need to purchase those. Then over the weekend we will head to the rescue again to get a home visit scheduled. I hope to meet Tia also while we are there this weekend. Here is her picture. My only concern is that we will fall in love with both and end up with two Goldens. (We do have two electric fence collars!)

Get Your Rest

It is going to be a fun couple of days little girl, so get your rest.

Yummy Stuff - Peanut Brittle and Zucchini Bread

So many great recipes for the holidays.  Here are two that will become staples in my house.

Peanut Brittle

Mom's Best Peanut Brittle by Allrecipes.com

Ingredients

1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup water
1 cup peanuts
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1 teaspoon baking soda

Directions

1.Grease a large cookie sheet. Set aside.  Make sure to measure out your peanuts, butter and soda ahead of time so that you can keep stirring while you are dumping these in.


2.In a heavy 2 quart saucepan, over medium heat, bring to a boil sugar, corn syrup, salt, and water. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Stir in peanuts. Set candy thermometer in place, and continue cooking. Stir frequently until temperature reaches 300 degrees F (150 degrees C), or until a small amount of mixture dropped into very cold water separates into hard and brittle threads.


3.Remove from heat; immediately stir in butter or margarine and baking soda; pour at once onto cookie sheet. With 2 forks, lift and pull peanut mixture into rectangle about 14x12 inches (lifting and pulling didn't work so well for me it is really helpful to poor this on something that will cook it quickly, either glass or marble.  Also, pour it thinly so you can do less pulling.); cool. Snap candy into pieces.
 
Yield: 1 pound of super yummy brittle!
 
Zucchini Bread
by The Muffin Lady, Linda Fisher
 
Ingredients
 
2 cups grated zucchini (including the peel)
1 cup oil (I substitute half the oil with 1/2 cup of flax seed with enough water to soak through)
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cardomom (I didn't have this and didn't include it in the recipe)
1/3 teaspoon mace
1/2 cup chopped toasted almonds (optional)
 
Directions
 
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Combine the zucchini, oil, eggs, and sugar.  Sift together the dry ingredients and gradually add them to the zucchini mix.  Blend in the nuts.  Bake in a 4 by 8 inch loaf pan for 45 minutes.
 
Yield:  8-12 servings

My kids call this "cornbread" when I use the flax because it is ever slightly grainy on top like cornmeal tends to be.  But this is really moist and lovely.  I would like to eliminate all the oil next time I make it and add in some applesauce.