the best season of all- day 10 and 11

We had a lovely, quiet week end.

Children are very happy about having the tree up. Little C. keeps exclaiming "The tree came to visit!" and she touches ornaments all the time.
Yesterday we made our first ornaments of the season. We took out  thick felt sheets and sewn up couple of birds. It was D.'s first big sewing experience as well as needle felting. He loved every minute of it. His bird was an owl and now it guards our tree. He did most of the work himself :)

I made a little dove, C. helped by messing with my thread and picking our sequins :)

Yesterday we read
Toot &Puddle I'll be home for Christmas by Holly Hobbie- another delightful little story about piglets




Today was another quiet day.


We read  The Wild Christmas Reindeer by Jan Brett.



I'm back to baking, made marble cookies using this recipe. 
The cookies are quite good, but too much work somehow mixing, and separating, and chilling the dough.

We watched Serendipity tonight, very nice:

the best season of all-day 5

After lazy week end we had an incredibly busy day today. We went to the Museum of Nature and Science (yay for free days!). What a great visit it was. We had fun at Space Odyssey exhibition and a free planetarium show. I was incredibly proud of my little boy, how he answered questions from the show guide, how carefully he planned and asked his own questions. He's so into space theme now, I love it! We watched a performance of an African drums band and strolled in "dinosaur land" for a while (C.'s love for dinosaurs and dragons is another delight for me, she love sword fights and dragon tales, she's such a brave little thing).
We got home pretty late and D. made couple of holiday cards. (Simple task, yay for pinterest inspired paint chips projects). It was made entirely by him without my help.

Our evening treat today was fried  apple rounds . It's basically apple rounds (skin peeled and cored) dipped in vanilla flavored pancake batter and fried in oil. We enjoyed it dusted with confectioner's sugar, with lots of whipped cream and hot tea.

We read a non-holiday book today, which my kids enjoyed very much :
Below by Nina Crews. It's a story of a boy and his favorite action figure, and their adventure together.





We also read some winter poems in Russian together.

Listening today : 
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Ric Larsen and Lisa Cunningham

Now it's quiet in the house, I'm ready for my book and my tea. It's so cold outside, I love it!

the best season of all- day 4

Another quiet day, I ran some errands in the morning, D. did his schoolwork on his own and read his stories with grandma, so proud of him.

It's cold here, the snow stays (for now).

Narnia :)

Our activity today was cutting snowflakes. Now it's snowing on our fireplace :)

What I especially love December for is that I have a perfect excuse for baking every single day and not even feel guilty about having all these cookies in the house. We made our annual chocolate cookies.

We read Let it snow! by Holly Hobbie (we just adore Toot &Puddle series!), cute tale and awesome illustrations.

We listened to
French Christmas Songs: Chants de Noël - Hélène Baillargeon

Mom and I are going to watch   Meet Me In St. Louis  tonight.
Life is good.

The best season of all- day 3

Lazy Saturday, we woke up to another glorious snowfall. This, unfortunately, caused hazardous road conditions and we had to cancel our going downtown for lights parade, I simply didn't dare driving all this way on icy roads.
Our activity from the calendar was looking at Christmas lights tonight so instead of the parade we took a tour of the neighborhood. We liked a lot all the displays, people really do get creative. What more is that there are even prettier lights all around, so we will take a drive around as soon as it gets drier.

Our treat today is one of our favorites Banana bread with chocolate and crystallized ginger. Delish!

We read Snow by Uri Shulevitz, lovely book!

the best season of all- day 2

Lovely, sunny day today. It still looks like winter outside, but all the nasty slippery ice from the road is gone. For me the best thing about winter evenings is the golden light of setting sun on top of white roofs. It's magic for me.

Our activity today was simple- decorating candles. We grabbed plain, unscented candles, mod podge, lots and lots of glitter and set to work. Kids had so much fun, and glitter is everywhere. D. picked up couple of pine cones and they also got some sparkly treatment.

The yummy treat for today : Crunchy cookies
Preheat oven to 385 F
2 cups of flour+pinch of salt -mix together, 125 g of softened butter +3/4 c of sugar +1 egg+1 tsp of vanilla -mix well. Add flour. Make a ball and let sit in a fridge for 45 min. Roll the dough, get cookie cutters out and bake for 15 min or until golden.

We read The Mitten by Jan Brett


Today's music :

Putumayo Celtic Christmas - Various Artists

The movie for me when kiddos are in bed  :
Sleepless In Seattle

 

2011 takes off

Happiest New Year to all!

Another fresh page. I hope we fill it with fun and lovely memories.

We had a very quiet celebration. During the day we made a New year's crown for D. and with leftover templates we made a festive house picture (inspired by German houses at paintedpaper )

My mom baked a "Zebra" cake (recipe below). It is extremely popular where I grew up and very easy to make.

It's very peaceful in our house right now, and outside is a best present of all- snowy whiteness- first decent snow this season.

Zebra cake recipe:

For the cake:

2 c of all-purpose flour

1 c of sugar

1 c of sour cream or greek yogurt

3 eggs

half a stick (50 g) of butter

cocoa

0.5 tsp of baking soda

Beat eggs well, add sugar, beat again. Add sour cream, beat well. Add flour and  baking soda, mix until smooth.

2. Separate mixture in two bowls. Add cocoa to one bowl and mix well.

3. Pour the mixture in the form my adding a tablespoon of each mixture on top of each other, starting in the middle.

4. Bake for 20-25 minutes until toothpick is clean when inserted in the middle of the cake. Set cake aside to cool.

5. Top with icing of your choice (I prefer yogurt with berries or condensed milk mixed with 50 g of softened butter plus nuts and bits of chocolate on top).

6. Let sit for a few  hours in the fridge or serve right away. Yum!

the best season of all continues

Whew, what a week...I have to work pretty much every day and trying to squeeze in some fun stuff turned out to be pretty challenging.
Anyway, we got some projects started, I managed to cook some yummy stuff and most importantly we got our tree today. So much joy for all of us- best childhood memories, the room is filled with smell of pine needles and magic of the season.

We baked Crescent Cake cookies. They turned out pretty good. The only thing I changed from the original recipe was that I took 50% of regular sugar and 50% of confectioner sugar instead of only confectioner. It added sweetness and flavor.

Wonderful and magic weekend for all friends and visitors!

the best season of all: day 3

It was a rough day for all of us so we had a quiet evening.
D. did crayon and watercolor snowflake painting.

We read "The High Hills" by Jill Barlem (Brambly Hedge series), the story is great and illustrations are absolutely gorgeous.

Right before the bedtime we baked Cranberry Muffins and for the first time since last holiday season we used our special snowflake muffin pan (which I got in target for $2, I do love their dollar section :))).

Cranberry Muffins recipe

Dry ingridients:

1 1/2 c of flour

1/2 c of sugar

1 tbs of baking powder

pinch of salt

Wet ingridients

1/4 c of melted butter

1 egg

1 cup of milk

1/2 c frozen cranberries

Preheat oven for 350 F

1. Mix dry and wet ingredients in separate bowls then mix together. Fold in cranberries.

2. Pour mixture in muffin pan (filling approximately 2/3 because muffins will rise) and bake for 35 minutes. Dust with powdered sugar if desired. Yum!

The best season of all: day 1

At our house December is a month-long celebration of the approaching winter, of magic that surrounds the season of Christmas and New Year. We don't do proper Advent because it was not part of the culture in which we grew up and I can't really get into it for some reason. So instead we try to  do a little craft, read a  book, bake something delicious every day or two.

Today D. brought a lovely holiday tree from his clay class

We read " Trouble with trolls" (it takes place in early spring actually, which I didn't know :D) , "The Hat" (which inspired us to find all kinds of silly things to use as a hat) and "Gingerbread Baby" by Jan Brett.

We baked our first cookies of the season.

Chocolate holiday cookies:

3/4 c of butter

1 c of sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 big eggs

2 c of flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp soda

1/2 c of cocoa

chocolate chips

powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Mix butter, cocoa, sugar, eggs and vanilla extract.

2. Mix dry ingredients and add to wet ingredients. Fold in chocolate chips.

3. Chill for an hour (if butter was not fully melted chilling is not required)

4. Put little balls of dough on the baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

5. Bake for 12 minutes, set cookies aside to cool. Dust with powdered sugar.

So it begins, we hanged our first decoration in the house, cross-stitching I made last year.

Sweet and lazy Wednesday

Well, lazy for D. anyway, he only did couple of worksheets under Grandma's supervision while I was out on errands and he read a lot  as usual. He couldn't wait to "make something", because mommy said it was "art every day" and  "we made a poster that says so " :)) He was pretty impatient. He decided that we needed some forest people for his new  playscape and we created this crazy pair.

The "daddy's" hat had to be modeled after the one from "Children of the forest" which we read yesterday (I was getting this book from amazon today and got a little crazy, ugh, well at least I can write it off as a holiday shopping, can't I)

I'm currently re-reading "Chocolat" by Joanne Harris and couldn't resist making the candy of my childhood - chocolate covered almond -stuffed prunes  and dried apricots. There isn't really a recipe, I just bough chocolate chunks from Whole Foods (bittersweet and milk), melted it in double boiler (3 parts bittersweet and one part milk). I believe the correct term for the process should be "tempering", but I didn't take a temperature or anything , I just warmed chocolate up until it looked nice and glossy. I stuffed prunes and dried apricots with whole roasted almonds and dipped the fruit in chocolate. Picked it out with chopsticks and chilled on the parchment paper covered plate overnight. YUM!

week end treats

Not the best week-end for us-  full moon is making everyone twitchy and snappy all of a sudden... I really hope upcoming weeks will be much better...

We made Apple Oatmeal Cookies on Saturday though, they turned out really good.
1/2 c of butter, melted
2/3 c of packed brown sugar 
1 egg
2 tsp of baking powder 
1/2 tsp of baking soda ( I add lemon juice to soda too)
1 apple, peeled and shredded
1 c of whole wheat flour
1 c of rolled oats
1 tsp of vanilla extract
1 tsp of almond extract
pinch of nutmeg
cinnamon if desired (I didn't have any at home)
raisins if desired
Preheat oven to 375 F
1) Mix well butter and sugar, add egg and vanilla extract, almond extract and nutmeg- mix again.
2)Add baking powder and soda and shredded apple
3) Add half of the flour and mix until even, add the rest of the flour and mix again.
4) Add oats, mix well with a spoon. I think raisins would work very well with this recipe but I forgot about them :D
5 ) Make small balls (or use a teaspoon) and put them on a baking sheet. Bake for 12 minutes.
YUM!

Sweet Saturday

Such a good day. Took D. to the story time at Barnes and Noble, then he played with friend . Gathered some leaves for a few projects I have in mind- the colors outside are so lovely and warm! Couple of stories, baking, a movie...if only every day was like this :))


Today's special treat is the Pear cake. It is a very simple recipe, it can be made with all kind of fruits (adjust amount of sugar accordingly to the sweetness of fruit) or even meats and veggies (cut the sugar entirely and add some salt to taste)
1-2 large pears (or any fruit)
handful of sliced almonds (optional)

Pear Cake

2 medium eggs
2/3 cup of sugar ( less if brown sugar is used)
2/3 cup of Greek yogurt or sour-cream (I prefer yogurt)
1 cup of all-purpose flour (can be used 60/40 with whole wheat)
1.5 tsp of baking powder

1.Preheat oven to 375 F
2. Beat eggs well, add sugar and beat again.
2. Add yogurt and mix very well.
3. Add flour and baking powder and mix until there's no lumps.
4. Slice pears and put them into a pie pan, pur the mixture over pears, mix if desired.
Sprinkle sliced almonds on top.
5. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until light brown (a toothpick should be dry when inserted).