Saltine Cracker Toffee

These are super yummy.

I made these to go in a treat box for my son's teachers. Fortunately, there were some leftovers.

There are no leftovers now.

Burp.

There is no final picture. Please go here for that.

Again, burp.

Line a cooking sheet with a single-layer of crackers.

Add caramel sauce to the crackers. Bake for 5 minutes.

Add chocolate chips. Don't add marshmallows. Trust me.

Ingredients:
1 sleeve saltine crackers
1.5 sticks unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Line a large rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil.
Place saltines in a single layer on foil lined baking sheet.
Melt butter in medium sauce pan over medium heat. Add brown sugar and bring to low boil. Boil for 5 minutes.
Pour mixture evenly over saltines. Bake in the preheated oven for 5 minutes or until the entire layer is bubbly. Watch this closely.
Remove from oven and immediately sprinkle chocolate chips evenly over saltines. When the chips begin to melt, spread the chocolate evenly over saltines making sure to spread all the way to the edges.
Place baking sheet in freezer for about 15 minutes until the entire layer has hardened. Break into pieces and enjoy!

Kitchen Sink Cookies

These are just plain fun cookies. Fun to make, fun to eat.

OK, they're probably a little more fun to eat.

Why are the kitchen sink cookies? Not too hard to understand this pun -- they have everything in them but the kitchen sink.

Some people call them monster cookies. I call them delicious.

I started with this recipe and tweaked it. It's worth it. Quick, easy and YUM.



Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 stick (½ cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup crunchy peanut butter
½ cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup light brown sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
½ cup rolled oats
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/3 cup crushed pretzels (keep them chunky)

1/2 cup M&Ms

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or greased aluminum foil.

On medium speed, cream together the butter, peanut butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and beat to combine. On low speed, gradually add the flour, baking soda and salt until just combined. Stir in the oats, chocolate chips, pretzels and M&Ms.

Make balls of dough (about 3 tablespoons in size) and drop onto prepared baking sheets about 2 inches apart. Bake for 10 minutes, or until the cookies are lightly golden. (*note -- they will still be soft! Don't keep cooking until they're firm). Cool completely on the baking sheet and then store in an airtight container at room temperature.

Easy Sand Dough Ornaments

I think we've found our new Christmas tradition!

Best shot I have -- the kiddos haven't painted theirs yet!

Sand dough ornaments!

A friend of mine gave me the recipe, and honestly? This was one of the easiest and most well-received crafts I've done with the kiddos. They think they're cookies, but the dough comes together MUCH quicker than any cookie recipe I've ever used. Plus, it was really two crafts in one -- first, making, cutting the dough, then painting/coloring after they've dried.

Ready for the step-by-step? You got it.

1. Mix together 2 cups flour, 1 cup salt and 1 cup warm water until the dough looks like a pie crust.
2. Place the dough on a well-floured surface and roll out to 1/4" thick. If you do it too thin, it may break easier once dry and will also NOT hold up to a handprint.
3. Cut out whatever shapes you have on hand with cookie cutters and place the shapes on a Pammed (I verbed Pam) cookie sheet.
4. Use a straw to poke a hole through each ornament and remove the center. This is where the ribbon will go after you paint to hang on the tree.
5. Bake for 6 hours at 200 degrees. Let cool overnight, then paint, marker, color away!

If you want these to last years, clear coat them with polyurethane.

Fun! 

Wax-Dipped Pine Cones

Remember when I said I had a special idea in mind for these?

Well, I finally got around to finishing the craft. Over the summer, my family and my husband's mom/brother/grandmother/aunts/cousins/foreverandeveramen went to the lake.

It was a bittersweet trip, as it ended up being the last that we'd spend with my husband's Aunt Lori.

Because we knew at the time that things weren't going the way we'd hoped they would for her, I wanted to do something special to remember the trip. While we were there, I spent quite a while scouring the ground for perfectly shaped pine cones. I had an idea for small gifts for the family.

Originally, I thought these would make great additions to Christmas presents, but I decided to make them as "Just Because" presents instead.

My mom died when I was 20. I was a sophomore in college and it blindsided me. We didn't have a fantastic relationship -- we hardly had one at all. But it was still really hard. Unexpectedly hard.

My mom & dad in the late 1970s.

Two months before she died was the last time I saw her. It was Christmas and she gave me two dollar store candles. I remember being mad that she gave me cheap candles -- especially because they weren't scents I liked (Apple Pie and Cinnamon Spice). How horrible of me. Absolutely horrid, childish behavior.

When she died, I kept the candles on my desk. Each time I moved after that -- from a dorm to an apartment, to my next apartment with fewer roommates, to my own apartment in Oklahoma, to this house where I've started my family -- I've kept the candles out.

I burn them whenever the loss is particularly acute. When my kids have a new adventure and I wish I could tell her about it. When I dream of her and wake up lonely.

I wanted to do the same for her family with these tokens from the lake trip. I melted scented tea candles (Apple Pie and Cinnamon Spice) on a double boiler over high heat, then dipped the pine cones in the wax and sprinkled them with sugar.

Whenever the mood strikes, you just throw one of these in the fireplace. The wax will melt and smell wonderful and the sugar will spark around the pine cones until it burns off.

I hope these pine cones are, in a small way, the same comfort for everyone this first Christmas without Lori as the candles have been for me.

Photo Card

Gifted Tag Christmas

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Santa! I know him!

The kids got their wish today -- we visited Santa in the mall.

They've been talking for weeks about what they were going to ask him for Christmas. A morphin, a doll crib, a light up light saber, a doll chair.

Fancy stuff.

When the moment came, and Santa asked them to tell him ONE thing they wanted, the pressure was on.

My boy asked for a teddy bear. My girl? A ball.

It's like the 1930s  up here.

Merry Christmas!

Harry Potter: Nerd Alert

I decided that my almost 5-year-old son was ready for the magic of Harry Potter. He'd seen parts of the movie before and has asked for it for Christmas. Being a book NERD, I told him we needed to start with the books.

I don't care what you do when you're on your own, but while you're in MY house, you will always start with the BOOKS.

New rule.

It's been a looong time since I've read the first book. So I just sort of assumed he'd be ready. I mean, I knew it might be a little over his head, but doable. Right?

Not so much. I mean, there's just a lot of background, you know? Talking about Mr. Dursley's job at the drill company. How he and his wife loathe "weirdos." Just fluff that's not usually in age-appropriate books for him.

Whenever I read books to him, I have him lie down and close his eyes so he can imagine it. I do this for three reasons -- I want him to use his mind to see what I'm reading, to make sure he really focuses AND to make sure he relaxes and hopefully drifts easily to dreamland.

The first chapter is 17 pages, y'all. At page 10 he started to really droop. Page 11, I suspected and page 12 confirmed that he had fallen fast asleep, tucked in with thoughts of a tabby cat and old Professor Dumbledore.

Here's where the nerd alert comes in -- I started to cry while reading the book. I know, I know.

But I was really invested in those books! And starting over, reading about the day James and Lily died and Harry became an orphan -- and reading about all these people who have no idea what's coming next.

And, yes, I realize it's a book. Fake.

But still.

Apparently there's still a part of me that's sad Dumbledore died. Because when he showed up, bah. It was over for me.

My kiddo might be a little young right now. We might have to put it back on the shelf. But I hope when he's ready, that it impacts him as much as it did (does) me. Good books move you when you're reading them.

Great books move you when you think about them, even 10+ years later.