Gingerbread Houses: Part II

The houses from Saturday's class turned out great!


I was supposed to have five kids in my class, but only two showed up. That was a big disappointment (and frustrating, considering the six hours I spent on making the houses the night before), however the two little girls who did come had such a great time it was hard to stay upset about the turnout. One of their moms decorated a house, Ryan came and decorated a house (and helped me out a lot), and the other two houses went home with my mom and to my parents' neighbors.

At least nothing was wasted.

Here are a few more shots from the whole shebang. These are the houses Saturday morning, before I left:


This is another decorated house - don't you love the door made of licorice rope and icing?


And here are the backs of the houses shown above:


I love the candy cane hearts and ice cream cone trees. The kids were so creative!

I wish I had the chance to decorate a house. One thing I know for certain is that there's going to be a lot of gingerbread houses in my future.

Gingerbread Houses: Part I

Whew.

I spent the last six hours making six little gingerbread houses. (Hey, that's easy math!) I did it all from scratch. I created a pattern out of cardstock, made the dough (four batches), and rolled and cut and trimmed and baked and trimmed some more.

By the time I was getting toward the end of the baking, I was able to start assembling the first houses. They are very, very simple - a little shorter in length and taller in height than the pre-made houses you get in those kits at the craft store. They are quite tasty and super cute. I'm making these for a class I am teaching tomorrow. After the kids get to them, I'm sure they will be a million times cuter.

It's a lot of work, making a little town of gingerbread houses.

I had to make the dough and chill it. I rolled the dough directly onto cookie sheets, traced my templates, cut everything out, and then had to put the cookie sheet in the fridge again for 10 minutes before putting it into the oven. (Helps prevent spreading.) And between each cookie sheet use, I had to cool them down with cold water, because I couldn't roll dough onto a warm sheet - too sticky.

I could only bake one sheet at a time, because when I tried two it was too uneven (yes, I rotated - didn't matter). It took two sheets per house, and baking time was 12 minutes. That's nearly two and a half hours of solid baking time, so factoring in the dough making, cleaning, cookie sheet cooling, dough chilling... the six hours makes sense. It just made for a very long night.

Tomorrow is going to be busy, busy. I'm still trying to figure out how to transport all of the houses to the class. There should be at least one gingerbread house update - with plenty of pictures. Here's to hoping, anyway!

Now, however, it's time for some sleep.

'Let's escape this town for a little while'

I'm in the mood for a vacation. I know, I know - when would a person NOT be in the mood for a vacation? I usually take my vacation time in the summer months, but I'm starting to think that having a week off in the dead of winter would be nice. Especially before Christmas - there are just endless things to do.

I still have tons (and tons) of baking to do. I have to make dog treats, an army of candy cane reindeer, and many other gifts that shall remain unnamed because I don't want to spoil anyone's surprise. I have to assemble my coworker's little gifts. And I have classes to teach this weekend and on Monday night - and I still have to do practically all the prepping for them, because I haven't had time to yet.

There are things I have accomplished, though, believe it or not. I have 90% of my shopping finished, and everything but two gifts that arrived on Tuesday are already wrapped and under the tree. My and Ryan's place is decorated, pretty much as far as it's going to get. I'm on top of cleaning, except for mopping the kitchen floor and the upstairs bathroom. So... there is some stuff done.

I have to keep reminding myself of that or I'm going to go crazy.

But can you imagine if I had an entire week off what I could get done? Baking and baking... and cleaning and crafting. I'd be so set, and I'd have time to relax to boot. Unfortunately, I didn't plan for that this year.

Maybe next year. We'll see.

(The above photo is during a sunset last week just up the street of our house. Too pretty not to post.)

Hello? Is this thing on?

I would ask if anyone has noticed that I barely ever receive comments on my blog (except pity comments from Ryan), but it would be a mute point, wouldn't it? Because if no one is commenting, there's a good chance no one is reading, either.

No matter - look at these cool cookies my mom made!


They are soft, chewy chocolate blossoms with peppermint hershey kisses on top. It's the perfect amount of peppermint and they're totally delish. I'm not too sure if she semi-made up this recipe or if she found it somewhere, but either way it's a definite keeper. And aren't they pretty?

Ryan and I made chocolate chip cookies the other night, but with swirled red and green chips instead of plain ol' brown. They were pretty flat when they baked (don't know why - there were four eggs), but definitely tasty. They were those soft, chewy chocolate chip cookies, which are second best next to the soft, non-flat variety, in my opinion.

Next on the cookie agenda are peanut butter blossoms for Ry and I. I'm sure we'll be baking a lot of others. I am going to be baking with my mom, too.

Next Thursday Ryan and I are hosting a Holiday Cookie Swap at our place - I'm super, super excited. I know we have at least five people coming for sure, so that's at least seven types of cookies! (Even though Ryan and I agreed we'll both make two types, being the hosts and all.) I'll certainly post about this after the fiesta next week, with lots and lots of photos.

Mmm... I love cookies. And Christmas. And Christmas cookies!

I won a raffle!

My local Starbucks held a raffle for a basket filled with relaxation goodies (tea, soaps, lotions, etc.) on Black Friday. To enter, you had to bring in a receipt from a purchase you made during the day. The whole idea was after spending a day shopping for everyone else, you could win something to pamper yourself.

And look!


I won.

As you can see, it's full of really great stuff. I haven't broken into yet - really, it's been too busy - but I'm going to scrub out the tub upstairs and take a nice bubble bath and such later this week. I think I could use the relaxation. I've been stressed to the breaking point over a lot of things lately.

I have this strategy with raffles - I always tweak my raffle ticket before I put it in with the others. I crumple up the corner or twist it a bit. When a hand goes in to pick the winner, this makes it stick out from the rest of the straight edges. And you know what?

I win raffles a lot.

Sometimes...

...you wish it was your own secret.


(This and more at PostSecret.)

Happy Birthday, John!

Monday was John's 29th birthday, and we celebrated a couple of times, once with friends and the other with family.

Saturday night Chris made reservations for all of us at Coyote Crossing, a great little Mexican restaurant in Conshohocken, Pa. The food was great - the company was better. And I think John had a great time, with a candle in his chocolate mousse dessert and all.

Afterward we ended up at John's (and the guys') 10th high school reunion at a bar in his hometown. It was fun to meet some of John's old classmates and even better to see John and his friends having so much fun catching up. I was a bit out of the loop (naturally), but I talked for a while with Dibya's girlfriend, Joyce, who is also an out-of-towner. So - fun all around!

Monday, being John's actual birthday, we went out to eat at Filomena, an Italian restaurant in Berlin, with John's mom, sister and her boyfriend. It was a delicious dinner, but the best part was probably our waiter, Frankie, who was not just attentive but thoroughly entertaining to boot. He even played guitar when they sang John "Happy Birthday."

So, this is just a little recap of John's celebration for the big 2-9. I think he had a good time - I certainly did. Happy birthday, John!