Love is the Air: Favorite Valentine's Day Traditions

Hello everyone,

I'm not even going to mention this latest blog-iatus (that's a blog- hiatus for those of you just tuning in) because it's become standard procedure for me nowadays.

Wait, did I just mention it?

I did, didn't I?

Any-whooo, I thought I'd take a moment to share a few favorite Valentine traditions that are simple and easy (and cheap!)

There are SO many cute ideas out there for Valentine's Day, but I've had to learn the lesson the hard way that I just can't do it all! When I try to do every little idea I see, I often end up "going to the party but missing the celebration," so to speak. In other words I become so focused on my doily table runner that I forget that the point of this holiday is to cherish the ones we love! Leslie wrote a great blog post about this subject the other day.

So, with that in mind, here are a few favorite, simple traditions that encourage togetherness.

1. 'Roses Are Red' Valentines:
A year or two ago, we started the tradition of making our own Valentines for each other (no store bought allowed!), and the rule is that the Valentine needs to follow the format of the poem "Roses are Red, Violets are Blue." I like to re-write the poem depending on what the kids are into that year.

Here are the Valentines I made the kids last year:

And here's the cute one Bennett made for me (with Daddy's help):

I've no idea what that crazy kid was talking about, but I like the way his mind works. Cake sandwiches? Yes sirree!

I also made one for the McPreacher of course, but it was a little scandalous so I'll just keep that to myself. Hehe.

2. Special Breakfast on Valentine's Day:

I LOVE breakfast, and in my book, any holiday is a good excuse to make a special breakfast! This is something I've been doing since McPreachy and I first got married. Even though this is kind of labor intensive, I LOVE cooking so it doesn't stress me out. Here are a few of the Pinteresting things I'd like to try for this years special breakfast:

Heart shaped Cinnamon Rolls

Strawberry/White Chocolate Cocoa

Heart-shaped Bacon

Convo Heart Bingo

And finally, our last little V-Day tradition...

3. Love Notes Jar

On our kitchen counter we have a jar where we can write little love notes to each other beginning the first o' the month. Then we read them during our Valentine's breakfast. Simple and sweet.

Here's the little bowl of love notes, waiting to be written on:

And here's a note that Mallory dictated for me to write for Bennett.

And yes, I know the pictures is sideways... I have issues.

Also, while we're at it, let's take a peek at a few of our simple Valentines decorations.

I think that about does it: Valentine's Day at our house in a nutshell... or any other shell that seems Valentinesy to you.

Either way, I love this holiday!

Preparing for Easter: A Few Fun, Meaningful Activities

Sorry Kiddiewinkies... no time to add photos to this post today.

My kitchen needs to be cleaned.

And I haven't uploaded photos from my camera since November.

No, seriously, all of our Chrismas pictures are STILL on the camera. For real.

Anyway... I thought I'd share my Easter plans for this year. I'm planning on doing a few simple activities with Bennett. I think they will really teach the Easter story in a very hands-on way.

• First, I found this tip on making your own Resurrection eggs instead of buying them. SCORE! (Thanks Leslie for posting this idea on your blog!). You are supposed to start opening the eggs 12 days before Easter... I started yesterday. OOPS. Oh well, we've' just been opening two eggs a day. NO need to live by the rules as long as the kids are learning. Ah-men.
• My friend Suz-to-the-Anne (I'd link to her blog but it's tre-exclusive) passed along a recipe for Easter Cookies, and I literally squealed with delight when I read through it. I can't wait to make them on Easter-Eve.

Also, I thought I'd share the mahn-u that my Mamasita and I will be making for Easter Dinner.

Appetizers:

Fruit Salsa with Cinnmon Chips

Deviled Eggs

Dinner:

Ham

Spicy Honey Chicken (For those non-pork eaters... Heathens.)

Creamy Herb Potatoes

Rolls

Green Salad

Dessert:

Strawberry Shortcake

That's all for now! Now go eat some Cadbury Mini Eggs and enjoy your Easter!

Valentine's Day: A Pictorial Montage

Today:

Because I don't feel like writing a lot and spellchecking...

...because I am the worst blogger ever and haven't posted in a gazillion years...

...AND just because it's Wednesday, I'm hereby presenting you with a pictorial journey into Valentine's Day in the McPreachy house. Use it wisely.

Our little "Love Jar" we use to write things we love about each other during the month and then read them on Valentine's Day:

Our school time theme for February: LOVE!

Bennett and I made these little "Bear Hug" bags for his friends. They are filled with gummi bears and teddy grahams.

Old-school-magnet-love-poetry... on the fridge. (McPreachy is a wonderful fridge poet.)

Candy Cane Heart Lollipops!

Heart-shaped Rice Krispie Treats:

This is a craft we made at MOPS... Flower Lollipop Valentines! So cute, fun and easy!

For the McPreacher:

For Bennett:

Valentine's Books:

Happy Valentine's Day, lovebirds!

For the Love of Joe: Product Spotlight

As you have heard time and time again, I LOOOOOOOVVVEE Trader Joe's. If I'm having a bad day, I just step through their hula-inspired doors, and everything seems right with the world.

Maybe it's the wonderful selection of unique and gourmet items. It might be the friendly staff, the clever packaging, the out-of-this-world prices or the stuffed lemur they hide around the store to keep my kids entertained while I shop. Perhaps it's because of the free samples they are always giving out or the quaint, neighborhood-grocery-store vibe of the whole place. Whatever the reason, TJ's just makes me happy when I'm feeling blue. What can I say? I'm easy to please.

Yet, unbelievably, I have several friends who don't shop at TJ's because they say they feel intimidated when they go in and don't know what to buy. They know that Trader Joe's is an absolute treasure trove of delectable delights, just waiting to be unearthed. But they just don't know where to start diggin'. So... I've decided to do weekly TJ's product spotlights of some of my TJ's favorites and how I use them. Consider it a little piece of foodie-aloha from me to you!

Today's product spotlight hails from the bread section on TJ's. She's a seasonal gal who loves butter, jam and leisurely dips in egg batter. That's right, folks... please welcome bachelorhood number one... It's TJ's Sliced Panetone Bread!

Panetone is an Italian fruitcake-inspired bread that is big around the holidays (Giada is a big fan, of course). It is a sweet, dense bread loaded with candied orange peel, almonds, cranberries and raisins (I'm usually not a fan of raisins, but they are good in this). YUM!

I spotted this beauty at TJ's yesterday, while looking for sandwich rolls, feeding small bits of grape to Mallory to keep her from screaming and telling Bennett for the ump-teenth time to please stop standing up in the cart.

I brought her home, and this morning we used her to make a batch of festive, holiday French Toast!

Here's what you do:

Crack a few eggs in a shallow dish. Add a splasheroo of milk, a shakeroo of cinnamon, another splasheroo of vanilla extract and a zesteroo of half an orange. These measurements must be exact.

Whisk it all together and dredge (that's a fancy way of saying "dip.") the bread slices in the egg mixture.

Now slap those dredged puppies on a hot skillet and cook both sides until golden brown.

Serve up your fancy-schmancy Panetone French Toast with butter and warm maple syrup!

Enjoy!

Cookie Day: All That and a Bag of Chocolate Chips!

Today was Cookie Day! As previously mentioned, My Mom and I have Cookie Day every December, and as the name suggests, it is a day where we make loads and loads and LOADS of cookies to give to our friends and neighbors (and of course, devour ourselves).

Here I am with some of our delicious, delectable creations. Please forgive my makeup-less, sweatshirt-clad appearance. Just keepin' it real. We don't dress up much around these parts when it's cookie day.

Here is my rediculously messy kitchen, in the throws of Cookie Day. Again, just keepin' it real...

This year we made several different types o' cookie goodness. We made:

• Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Pecan Sandies (a Cheryl L. West super-secret recipe... well, not really, I just don't feel like typing it in right now.)
• Icebox Shortbread (we made two different types: chocolate chip and orange-cranberry. YUM!)
• Gigantic Ginger-Molasses Cookies
• Vanilla Bean Snowmen
• Apricot Almond Snickerdoodles

These Snickerdoodles were actually made for our annual church bake-off last night, and they won in the cookie category! The were really good!!! Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 3/4 c. chopped almonds, toasted
• 3 c. flour
• 1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 c. sugar + 1/4 c sugar for the topping
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp. almond extract
• 3/4 c. dried apricots, chopped
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves

Directions:

1. Whisk together flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
2. Using a hand mixer on medium speed, cream together butter and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy (5 minutes).
3. Add eggs and almond extract to butter mixture and blend until incorporated.
4. Add half of the flour mixture, beating on low until combined. Add remaining flour, beating only until just incorporated.
5. Fold almonds and apricots into the dough until evenly distributed.
6. Mix together 1/4 c. of sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves in a shallow bowl or plate.
7. Shape dough into 1.5 inch balls. Roll the dough into sugar/spice mixture.
8. Transfer cookies to greased cookie sheets and bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes, until cookies are lightly browned. Cool completely and enjoy!

Another part of this year's cookie day fun was making a gingerbread house with Bennett. My dad and McPreachy did this fun project with Benny while my Mom and I were in the kitchen baking away!

We used a gingerbread house of the pre-baked variety, and it worked great. Why go to all that trouble baking the house, when decorating is really the fun part? At least that's the way I see it!

Here are the fun and delicious candy decorations.

Here's Benny-boy overseeing the construction of the house.

In all honesty, Bennett was much more excited about trying to eat all the candy decorations than he was about actually decorating the house. But he did have a lot of fun. After he got bored with it, McPreachy finished decorating it himself.

Here are a few shots of the finished product. Come along, kiddie-winkies... I'll give you the tour.

Here's the side of the house, where little graham cracker bunnies just love to frolic and play amongst the gumdrop tulips.

Here's the other side of the house. Question: What in the world is that little white swirly-swoop on top o' the lollipop? It scares me a little, as do the frosting "wigs" our gingerbread poeple are wearing. Methinks McPreachy got a little craaaazy with the frosting.

Here's the front door of our Casa de Gingerbread. Notice the very Sistine-Chapel-esque rose window above the front door (McPreachy is very cultured).

Merry Christmas, Cookie Lovers!

December: Christ, Crafts, Cookies and CRAZINESS!

To My Faithful Blog Readers (All 4 of you):

Thank you for your polite, little nudges reminding me to get this blog a-rollin' for the holidays... to trim my cyber tree, if you will. The kick in the patootey was just what I needed to drag myself away from my mile-long to-do list and give a little shout out to Christmas.

I LOVE Christmas... Very few things get me as excited as pulling out my Christmas decorations and getting things decked for the holidays. But each year, things seem to be getting crazier and CRAZIER and CRAZIER! I think my problem is that I want to do it ALL! The baking, the homemade gifts, the fun family traditions, the caroling, the decorating... I could go on forever baby (name that Christmas movie). A few days ago, only mere hours into December, I was already on the verge of a nervous breakdown. There are simply not enough hours in December to do it all, and I need to come to grips with that if I'm going to enjoy my Christmas and make it meaningful for my family. So I am *trying* to remember to slow down amidst all the things I want to do. I am *trying* to pace myself and just take time to sit on the couch with the ones I love, looking at our tree and drinking cocoa!
It's not easy to say no to some things that I really want to do, but I'm *trying.* (somehow, putting asterisks on the word *trying* softens the meaning of the word and gives me a little more grace in the event that I fail horribly.)

But seriously, this year my goal is to remember God's Son and His birth each time I do something Christmasy... to do things that point to Jesus and bring joy to my family, myself and others instead of just doing task after task out of obligation.

I know, I know... who ever thought Casey Crocker had all these deep thoughts just swimming around in that bleached-blonde head of hers. Not me... that's for sure!

That being said, here are a few things I am really looking forward to this month:

• Taking Bennett on the Santa Claus Train at Irvine Park. This is a fun tradition, and I love seeing my son's face light up with joy when he sees the train all decorated and lit up for Christmas.
  
• Baking Cookies with my Mom. Every year we have "Cookie Day" where we bake, bake bake until we just can't bake no more!
  
• Making a Gingerbread House with Bennett. He was too young for this last year, so I'm excited to start this tradition this year.
  
• Watching some of my favorite Christmas Movies... It's a Wonderful Life, The Grinch, Home Alone 1 and 2, The Santa Clause Movies... I pack them away all year, and they are ONLY to be watched in the month of December. Those are the rules of Christmas Movies and they are unflinchingly rigid.
  
• Making and baking some cute, homemade gifts. Sorry I can't divulge my secrets yet, as a few of my blog readers will be the recipients of said gifts.
  
• Making some fun crafts with Bennett. I know a few of you have asked me about our school-time theme this month. December (like November) is proving to be a difficult month to pick a theme because anything I pick ends up being limiting. There are just so many Christmas symbols to choose from. So I'm just going to title it "Christmas Month" and call it a day. Don't worry... we will be resuming more specificly-themed months come January. Snowflake month, anyone?
  
• Taking the kids to go see Christmas lights. I LOVE bundling everyone up in the car and taking along some thermos' of hot chocolate and coffee. Last year we found an online list of the best local light displays. They were amazing!


• The food, food, food! You can expect to find some festive recipes on my blog in the coming weeks. Christmas cooking (and eating) is the BEST!


• The music! I LOVE Christmas music and only listen to it in the month of December (*see Christmas Movie Rules, above). Here is our precious man singing "Good Christian Men, Rejoice." And yes, I bribed him with a candy cane so I could catch it on film. Don't judge me. I'm only human.

And with that precious display of holiday spirit, I will bring this holiday shout out to a close.

Merry Christmas!