Christmas Treats by Victoria, photo by Jamie!

Christmas 2008

We had a very cool Christmas with Jac (V's sister) and husband Hugh in residence for a week or so. They had ordered a White Christmas and it certainly happened outside!!

Here are some pics....


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BIG snow today!!!

Today we had about 30cm of snow over about 6 hours!! It was quite a mission to walk up the road this afternoon to get milk etc because some people hadn't had their footpaths (sidewalks) shovelled yet so it was quite a workout pushing the stroller! Here is Cooper after we got home playing in it outside. I couldn't find his gloves quickly so I put some of my leather ones on him!

Gingerbread

Cooper received a book from his Nonna last month "The Little Gingerbread Boy" ('run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man' who eventually gets eaten up by a fox!) so I said we would make some gingerbread 'soon'. So for the last few days I have been being asked frequently "Mummy Cooper make gingerbread man" so I thought I had better get into it and so on Tuesday we did!

Here is some pretty serious rolling happening....



.....and some vigorous stamping with his great-grandmother Finch's gingerbread-man cookie cutter!




And some of the finished products!









The recipe was online at http://www.santas.net/gingerbreadmen.htm (not very clear - I didnt realise the icing sugar (confectioner's sugar) was for the icing later on so ours are quite sweet with that added in to the dough mix!!

3 and 1/4 cups flour
1.2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp ground cloves
1 cup salted butter, softened
3/4 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
1 large egg
1/2 cup unsulfered molasses
2/3 cup confectioners sugar
1 - 2 tsp milk

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325'
2. Whisk together flour, salt, cinnamon, baking soda, ginger, and cloves
3. Cream butter and sugar. Scrape down sides of bowl. Add egg and molasses and beat on medium speed until smooth.
4. Scrape down bowl and add flour mixture, blend on low speed until just combined -- do not over mix!
5. Separate dough into 2 balls and flatten into disks. Wrap each disk tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate 1 hour.
6. On floured surface with floured rolling pin, roll dough out to 1/4" thickness. With floured cookie cutters cut into shapes. Gather scraps and re-roll dough until all is used. Place on ungreased baking sheets about 1/2" apart.
7. Bake 9-11 minutes -- do not brown. Transfer to cool, flat surface and cool.

Preparing Icing:

1. Whisk sugar and milk until smooth but still liquid.
2. Add extra milk if seems dry.
3. Spoon icing into a pastry bag with small piping tip, or other icing dispenser.
4. Decorate as desired.

More Christmas Presents

Cooper is very excited about the presents accumulating under the Christmas tree "Mummy, Cooper open a present today" (more of a statement than a question!). So upon hearing that the parcels from Uncle Jon & Aunt Andrea in Mississippi were perishable, he was allowed to investigate and sample what was in some of the packages!

Vogels Bread in the USA!!!

I received an early Christmas present today. Jamie ordered 4 loaves (yes FOUR!) of Vogels bread from www.homesick-kiwi.com He was unsure about the storage of them so had to let me know what the surprise was this evening. I'm so excited to have a slice with Marmite on in the morning!!!!

Icicles

Here are a few of the icicles hanging off our front porch!
Not quite the 6-foot long ones from last Winter when part of the spouting (guttering) was broken at the back of the house, but certainly you wouldn't want to be walking underneath them in case one broke off!

Feeling White Christmassy

Peeping out the front door on my way to bed last night, I just felt I had to capture the moment!



And then the Christmas tree was looking quite spectacular.....




And my little homemade arrangement of candles on top of the piano wasn't looking too bad either....!!


And here we are heading out in the snow for a walk this morning with the house in the background.... Cooper has been saying for 3 days "Mummy, Cooper go coppy shop now" (coffee shop for his 'babyccino' which is a 'down-under cafe speciality - an espresso cup of steamed milk which I have got our local coffe shop making for him!) and finally the storm relented and blue skies came so off we went!

And another birthday.....

Hitting the 4th decade in Finch birthday-hat style (trying to balance it so it didn't fall off!)....