The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I guess the lure of a two week break just wasn't enough for the girls because the week before their holiday was scheduled to begin they both came down with a wicked virus. Paige missed the entire week of school and Reese was out for three days.  They barely recovered in time for Christmas, so Daddy and I had our hands full keeping them inside and occupied for so many consecutive days. (I repeat, I DO NOT know how people with young children survive being home bound in winter conditions...being home with sick children is about as close as we regularly come and it's miserable.)

To keep ourselves busy and get in the holiday spirit we spent nearly an entire day making cake pops. A big thanks to cousin Mark who sent us a Christmas package including a cake pop maker! Once the girls were no longer sick we used it to make cake pops for all of our neighbors and Santa. They were delicious, but I was a bit ambitious. Since I bake so rarely I needed this annual reminder about why I hate it so much. The timing and precision involved in making three dozen cake pops (1/2 red velvet with white chocolate coating, 1/2 pound cake with chocolate frosting turned into reindeers) was enough to make me crazy. The girls didn't mind and helped themselves to a generous numbers of cake pops that didn't make the cut. There was even an entire batch of red velvet that was made without eggs...I was a little distracted by potential catastrophe involving my girls and three jars of sprinkles, but we recovered and made a new batch of batter. There were also a few cake pops that went into the melted coating on sticks, but were lost in the sea of hot sugar. I did let them cool before the girls dug in. And yes, I did dig through an entire bag of ABC pretzels to find matching pairs of Es, Fs, and Y's for the reindeer antlers.  Believe me, if you google holiday cake pops there are a lot better ones out there, but I think the women who make them have infinitely more time and patience than I do.

Since our blood sugar levels were already at an all time high, we followed our day of cake pops up with a gingerbread house making extravaganza the following day. Thank God for aerosol icing! As expected, Reese was meticulous about the construction of her house. She created patterns on each side and had to have a piece of licorice coming out of the chimney for smoke. She and Daddy worked as a team. On the other side of the counter was me and Paige. Paige ate at least one piece of candy for every piece that made it on her house and she quickly learned that there are no mistakes when it comes to using icing--you simply just wipe it off with your finger and lick. I can imagine this becoming a tradition in future years, and if they can spend an hour doing it as toddlers, I can only imagine how much time they'll enjoy spending on it in a few years.