Christmas Baking 2019

When I was planning for our Christmas festivities back in the summer, I was a tad bit cautious in over planning in the baking department. I decided to plan for only a few baked goodies and candy making, then reevaluate as the season progressed with my pregnancy and how I felt. I ended up feeling extremely well and we ended up adding a whole lot more baking and candy making to our Christmas schedule.

The pictures on this post are not posted in order, but I thought it would make more sense just to post the pictures in similar groups. The above picture is some peanut butter kiss cookies we baked. Sadly these were not a huge hit with my people. The cookies were excellent, but no one liked the candy kisses. Most folks picked off the candy and just ate the cookie.

We kicked off our Christmas baking with cut-out sugar cookies that we iced and loaded down with sprinkles. Of course these are a family favorite and a must for my people at every holiday.

Everyone pitched in extra this holiday baking season since I was about to have a baby any day throughout all our baking madness, lol.

Next up we had traditional cookies. We first made three different kinds and then later in the month we baked three other types of cookies. 

The first three batches of cookies were mostly packaged into goodie bags and given to neighbors. 

Since we gave away most of the first three batches of cookies, we also made these Christmas M&M cookies, as well as the peanut butter kiss cookies pictured above, and the Christmas tree spritz cookies pictured below.

Spritz cookies aren't exactly a favorite for my family, but there's just something about them that says Christmas to me, so I had to make them. 

Red velvet white chocolate was among the first batch of cookies we made.

As well as chewy oatmeal.

 Last up in the cookie baking was peanut butter white chocolate cookies.

We also made an assortment of candy.

First we made peanut butter white chocolate Krispies.

Then we made chocolate covered peanut butter ritz crackers.

As you can see by Samuel's face the children had loads of fun making candy this year. This is one of our favorites that we call chocolate peanut clusters.

And no Christmas candy making session is complete without white chocolate covered pretzels. These are always the first to be gobbled up in our family. 

We tried a few new Christmas treats this year and one of them was Christmas crack or I've heard it called saltine cracker toffee. This was an interesting candy which my family did not like. We made three different versions, one with crushed pecans, one with chocolate M&M's, and one with sprinkles. I really, really liked the one with sprinkles, even if my family didn't.

These Rolo pretzel bites were also a new treat we made this year, which unfortunately, was not a favorite either. My children ended up picking the candies out of the pretzels because the pretzels became stale, even though they were stored in an airtight container. {{sigh}}

I wasn't going to make these chocolate covered peanut butter cheese-it bites, but my kiddos said they were a must. They blessed me by making every bit of them without any of my help.

Also a new addition to our Christmas candy making were these white chocolate haystacks. 

Due to the fact that our family is so large and we decorate so many gingerbread houses; we also make the gingerbread cookies to make the actual houses.

Since it takes so long for the houses to set up; the big kids, mom, and dad assemble the gingerbread houses the night before we plan to decorate them. 

Last but not least we also made a mega batch of Doodads. Even though Doodads aren't really under the realms of baking, it is something we make especially to enjoy during the Christmas holidays. The picture above was only half of what we actually made. 

Is baking a necessity to celebrate Christmas? Absolutely, not! But it is a treasured Christmas tradition for our family. I am so glad that even though I was extremely pregnant this Christmas, we were still able to make our favorite Christmas treats and even try a few new ones.

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer 

Thanksgiving Craftivities

Whoop Whoop super excited that I'm getting this post on here before Thanksgiving! The last few weeks of pregnancy I literally feel like a ticking time bomb and always preface my list of to-dos with "if the baby doesn't come today". Well as y'all can see the baby hasn't come yet and I got all our fun Thanksgiving craftitvities done and documented!! Yes, I am one happy mama. And to make it all even better, every day of our projects went off without a hitch except the last day ~ sigh! Well, you can't win them all I guess. 

We kicked off our Thanksgiving craftivities with baking homemade cut-out sugar cookies. 

Making cut-out sugar cookies is one of my favorite holiday traditions, so much so that the kids learn real quick and at a super young age the cookie making process, lol.

Of course we can't make cut-out cookies without icing them. The day was so full with activities that it was well after dinner before we could get to icing our cookies. Mama almost made a major booboo!! When we went looking for our sprinkles, we discovered most of our fall sprinkles were empty ~ Yikes! You can't ice cut-out sugar cookies without sprinkles!! Thankfully we made it work, but I will be urgently restocking our sprinkle stash.

Our first art project was a turkey directed drawing. 

I absolutely love how the kids get into creating their own personalized directed drawings.

Our next craftivity went along with watching our Charlie Brown Thanksgiving movie. 

The children made mini pumpkin pies.

 My eldest daughter decided to add chopped pecans to her little pie, and I think it turned out so pretty.

Next we made 'Thankful Turkeys'.

I free-handed a turkey body, beak, gobbler, and feathers onto construction paper for the children to glue together. On each of the turkey's feathers the children wrote what they were thankful for.

One of our Thanksgiving traditions is to make mini loaves of pumpkin chocolate chip bread for our neighbors and a couple family members. 

I'm one of those weird mamas who loves having my babies in the kitchen with me AND when I see extra big cheeky grins like this one on Lydia, it makes all the extra work and chaos worth it to have them bake and cook with me! 

I almost love these mini loaves as much as muffins. They're so cute and perfect for gift-giving. 

Last we had a Thanksgiving minute-to-win-it. The goal was for the children to blow faux turkey feathers across the room. The first one to reach the other side of the room was the winner.

During our seasonal fun schooling weeks we do 'light duty' in regards to the nitty gritty of our normal core homeschooling regime. This week we did do a Thanksgiving interactive notebook (which I did not take any pictures of~ sorry). For the most part the children's lessons consisted of whatever they could do independently. It gives us all a much needed break from our normal homeschool routine.

Scheduling these fun school weeks has been a lifesaver for this mama and I wish it hadn't taken me so many years to figure out how to incorporate them into our homeschool schedule. Trust me though, they will forever more be a common reoccurrence in planning all our future homeschool years.

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Holiday Muddy Buddies

Happy Halloween

I have to start off with apologizing for my absence! You know how it goes, everyone has that one month or season where you're just insanely busy and it's a major struggle to get everything you want, done. Sadly, my blogging has taken a back seat lately because October is our busiest month of the year! I seriously have at least a dozen posts headed your way; I just have to find the time to get them posted! 

Since I am so behind with my posts and today is Halloween, I thought I'd share a fun seasonal/holiday recipe, and then I'll go back and start posting, in order, all the other posts I have planned, lol.

To me the holidays are never complete without loads of fun food, especially recipes that are easy for kids to make. On Halloween we eat a plethora of festive foods, but this year we added in Halloween Muddy Buddies. This is a super easy snack mix to make, so much so that even your little ones can lend a hand. This recipe is easily adapted for any holiday with the appropriate colored chocolate M&M's. Since it is Halloween, we used Halloween colored M&M's.

Holiday Muddy Buddies

Ingredients 

1 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup butter

9 cups Chex cereal (I used a whole box of Aldi brand corn Chex cereal)

1 cup confectioners sugar

1 bag holiday colored chocolate M&M's

Directions 

Line two large jelly roll pans with parchment paper. Pour cereal into a large bowl. Melt chocolate chips, peanut butter, and butter in a glass bowl in the microwave. Pour melted chocolate mixture over cereal and toss with spoon until evenly coated. Pour cereal onto cookie sheets, dividing evenly. Cool in fridge for 30 minutes. Pour cereal back into large bowl and toss with sugar. Add M&M's. Ready to eat immediately or store in air tight container.

I realize a lot of conservative Christians do not celebrate Halloween, and I 100% support that decision. (We went many years without celebrating the day!) But, now we've adapted the holiday to fit our lifestyle and simply use it as an opportunity to create fun family memories. We are intentional to keep it light, fun, and void of the dark scary stuff that often overshadows a fun day to dress up and use your imagination. 

Making festive food is just another wonderful addition to our family's Halloween celebrations. It didn't take more than an hour (and not all at one time) to make this fun treat. My kiddo thought it was a great festive snack. There was nothing spooky or 'bad' about this snack mix ~ only a special holiday memory of baking with mom on Halloween. Life is what WE make it to be, even a holiday like Halloween!

So to all our fellow Halloween celebrating friends ~ be safe, make those treasured memories, and enjoy your evening!

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Simple Fall Snack Mix

There's nothing like Fall and all the fun food that goes along with the season. It's no secret that Summer is my favorite season (mostly because I'm extremely cold-natured and despise cold weather), but Fall runs a close second. The temperature begin to become tolerable (for those of us who reside  in the Deep South), the trees put on a display of beauty no words could adequately describe, and the fun seasonal food is simply divine!

Once the calendar switches to September, our family is in hyper-memory making mode. Our days, especially the weekends, are filled with wonderful seasonal traditions. One of those many traditions includes visiting a real pumpkin patch/working farm in Harpersville, Al. We've been visiting Old Baker Farm for the past 14 years, without fail. We've had the privilege of watching it grow into a spectacular family event destination. 

And since I'm one of those ultra corny mama's I always have to bring along themed food for our traditional pumpkin patch picnic. Now y'all this is nothing fancy or time consuming, just a simple snack mix that adds a little flair to our dining experience while at the pumpkin patch.

One of our family's must-have food items for our pumpkin patch picnic is a Simple Fall Snack Mix. There are tons of snack mix recipes plastered all over the Internet; and I find that every family has their own special twist. But for me personally, I do not have time, energy, or the funds to make overly complicated recipes; even for our special pumpkin patch snack mix. Which is why I made our family's Fall Snack Mix recipe budget friendly and quick to make.

Simple Fall Snack Mix

Ingredients  

• Pretzels
• Bugles chips
• Peanuts
• Candy corn or pumpkin candies 
• Fall M&M candies

Directions

Mix all ingredients together and store in an airtight container or sealed baggies.

I typically let the kiddos get their hands into making this super simple recipe. It's fun to have my children help in the kitchen and it gives them an opportunity to serve their family. Since we were taking this fall snack mix to the pumpkin patch, I had the children place half cup portions into fall bags. This year I didn't use the pumpkin candies because they're kind of large and I wanted Lydia (our not quite 2yr old) to be able to eat her snack mix on her own. 

Most years I buy the Fall colors plain M&M chocolate candies, but this year I couldn't find any and I ended up buying a bag of pumpkin spice flavored M&M's. They were very unusual to say the least. Not bad or good, just different, lol. I would say half of my people liked the pumpkins spice flavored M&M's while the other half didn't care for them at all. And to that I simple say, "You can't please them all, all the time!"

While it isn't a must for us to have themed food to bring to the pumpkin patch, it is fun and we all enjoy the break from the 'norm'. We picnic a lot, it's just par for the course with a large family. It saves us money and allows us to better allocate our funds for future 'experiences' verses food. I try to add variety to our picnic food, and with it being fall and this particular outing being to a pumpkin patch; it only seemed fitting to make a Fall Harvest Snack Mix. 

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer