AJ's Gift

AJ made this for me in school this week. Isn't it beautiful?

Busy Weekend

This past weekend, we hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for our neighbors. I had taken them some pumpkin pie last year to sample, but I wanted to share the whole meal with them. The husband can't eat gluten, which provided some challenges. I prepared regular food for the rest of us, but I tried to make a gluten-free version of stuffing, gravy, and pumpkin pie crust.

The stuffing I made from some store-bought gluten-free bread, but the texture was definitely different than regular stuffing. It tasted good, though, and I was encouraged to make my own stuffing from scratch next year.

The gravy was a big fail. I added too much gluten-free flour and it turned transparent instead of the opaque pale brown I associate with turkey gravy. It wasn't like I had a whole lot of extra drippings to thin it out since I used them for the other gravy. Lesson learned: I hope. I should have used corn starch, but I didn't have any on hand.

The pumpkin pie was made with buckwheat flour, and I thought it tasted nasty at first. With the pumpkin filling, though, it was pallatable. It lacked the flaky, buttery texture I associate with a delicious crust, though. I only made one pumpkin pie, so everyone was stuck with the buckwheat crust. The pumpkin cheesecake was a different story. I used gingersnaps for the crust and gluten-free flour in the filling. I baked some of the filling in ramekins with no crust, and I baked the rest in a mouth-watering gluten-full concoction of deliciousness. :)

Overall, everyone enjoyed the food, and the kids had a great time playing with one another. AJ and the boy played the Wii, and K and the girl played doctor and school. Poor H was the only one left out.

SUNDAY, I got up early to get to church in time to practice my violin for the worship service. Timo came later with the kids, and this was the day when we finally became members of our church. K brought her camera, and she took a picture of me playing during the service. Enjoy the rare footage, if you can tell where I am. :) I really enjoyed playing, even though I could have used more practice time (and it had been at least a month since I had touched my violin... whoops!)

This was our last weekend home as a family this year, and I think we made the most of it.

Giving Thanks and Baking

 Thanksgiving at our house was mostly business-as-usual. K and AJ went to school, Timo went to work, and we ate leftover pizza for dinner. I did, however, want to make some effort to make it a special day for the kids. So, we made gingerbread cookies while listening to Christmas music.

K and H helped make the dough, but AJ wanted to play. 

H ready to go. Actually, he had started to scoop the flour out of the bowl, so we had to start over.



K measuring the ginger



I love all the shades of brown in the spices



Mixing the wet ingredients



H taking a turn stirring.



Adding the dry ingredients to the wet ones.



K kneading the dough



H found a fork in the drawer and was sneaking samples of the dough



We made the dough before dinner, then we rolled it out and cut it into the various shapes afterwards. Since we divided the dough into three parts, each kid had his/her own ball of dough to work with. K and AJ ended up splitting H's ball since he lost interest.

All ready for the cookie-cutters



H and his ball of dough



"What's this on the bottom?"



H enjoying the cookie-cutters



K cutting out her cookies



AJ decided to take a bite out of his dough before we rolled it out.



Rolling out his dough



Cutting the cookies



Tasting the final product



I love baking and Christmas-time and my kids. Put all three together, and I have a lot to be thankful for.

Continued Celebrations



Saturday, we finally celebrated K's birthday with cake as a family. The kids requested that this event be  accompanied by noise-makers, which H, especially, seemed to get a kick out of. 

No, H, that's the wrong end.



There you go!



AJ blowing his noise-maker



Cutie Pie H enjoying himself.




The birthday girl




Look at those puffed cheeks!

 The birthday cake was actually chocolate snowflake cupcakes drizzled with ganache.


Happy Birthday to you!



Blowing out the candle

Happy Birthday, Sweetheart! I love you.