Another Attempt at the Tree

This time the appetizer tree worked even better - hubs cut the cucumber shapes, even hearts. He kept going to our tree to look at the ornaments, and tried to copy shapes. He did a great job on the star for the tree top.The bottom of the tree had packages of cucumber boxes and kumquats.
Gathering at Dolly's house - minus Anderhoff's who are in California for Christmas, Jordan who is in Maui, and Jason who was Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve. I love my family and am so thankful for each and every one of them. Glad that Dolly's cousins Andrea and Abby could join us too.

Edges and Crumbs

Bar NONE - my favorite thing at Christmas time baking session is the apron my three boys made for me when they were little. I treasure it and it makes everything well in the world.
I have a rule when cooking - burned or dry edges and crumbs must be eaten, and they have no calories. I am now stuffed.

This was my first try at Tri-Colored Mochi. I love how they turned out, and how I can get 2 colors by turning upside down. Makes my mind race on how I can have fun with these. For those of you who don't know what mochi is - it is an acquired taste for sure. They are basically made of mochiko flour (sweet rice flour), sugar, coconut milk, water and vanilla, and are super gooey, so must be rolled in potato starch. I think they must do that to Aplets and Cotlets too. Mochi can truly freak people out on their first try. -
Lemon Bars - cannot leave them out - we all need our fruit.
I have been making this recipe for Peanut Brittle since 1973 - it is the not-break-the-teeth-kind.

At the risk of leaving out good protein, these are peanut butter balls made in a pan. I call them Lazy Balls

Edible Christmas Tree

This turned out so cute! It was eaten all gone at our Quantivate Christmas party. So thankful for all that God has given me this year.

WHAT a year it has been! It started out with anaphylactic shock and near death from celery, and ended with me busting myself up real bad in my mom's hospital room. LOL I couldn't even MAKE this stuff up!

In spite of the beginning and end of 2011, I am so blessed.

Funny Christmas card story:

I ordered the Costco Christmas cards - after I clicked ORDER, I realized the picture was from LAST year, which I did not send out. Oh well, we all look basically the same.

As I started to think about addressing the 100 cards, I asked Joseph if we can just make labels - "we don't have labels or the program, just do it by hand like you always do". I thought about it for about 5 minutes, and realized that since I work 60 hours a week and he does not, HE should do it. I turned the job over to him to execute the next day.

After many failed attempts of trying to print in our printer, etc..etc..HE HAD LABELS MADE! Not only did he have labels made, he had an assembly line to putting labels on, sealing envelopes, and adding the stamps.

Gotta love him <3