Advent day 8: Holiday Legos

Today, was wet and windy.

The children enjoyed taking their time sifting through all of their lego.

Looking for just the right piece.

Before building many festive lego creations to bring holiday cheer to their lego land.

Hanging the wreath and more more mince pies

Hatchling no1 has been shopping extensively for the perfect wreath for our front door.

This has become of great importance.

Do not mess with a house proud hatchling, especially the pre - teen variety, and I say that lovingly.

She finally found THE ONE.

At the quiet sum of £58.99

Yeah, that was not going to happen.

We have like a whole lot'a lot'a windows to buy and all sorts of other places to spend money.

But motherly guilty, and joy that she takes pride in our home, made me very keen to indulge her.

So, I bought an 'ugly' £1 wreath from the pound store, and a ±£1 string of lights.

And I set about knitting up the ends of old balls of yarn and came up with a snowman and two little owls.

And thankfully, my hatchling is please, she hung it on our front door today, and sighed happily.

Which makes me happy.

Mince pies also make me happy, and I have been making trays of these again most of the day long. 

I am going to be snowman shaped, by the end of this holiday with all the brandy cream and pastry I have eaten...

and it is so worth it!

Just in case you fancy some mince pies, here is the link to our recipe:

http://followingourrainbow.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/mice-pies.html

Advent day 3

Fudge, fudge, and more fudge in the fridge, which I did not take a photo of.

Mint areo bubble fudge, coconut and dark chocolate bounty bar style fudge, rolo fudge, pecan and caramel fudge, whiskey fudge, baileys fudge, and dark chocolate and walnut fudge.

Our sampler plate of the first few fudges that set.

Now we are all ready for out stall and the winter fayre.

Happy Wednesday!

(Our base recipe was a tin of carnation condensed milk, a tbs of butter, 400g chocolate, and 50g icing sugar, plust up to 100g of additional extras.)

Happy Holidays

This is mostly a photo dump of our morning for family.

We had a wonderful quiet day, mostly spent eating and playing.

After the last few storms, we have been incredibly thankful that we were warm, dry and still had electricity.

I sincerely hope that you were also warm, healthy and surrounded by those who care.

Happy Yule and Merry Christmas!

Advent day 12: Edible trees

We decided to try out making chocolate trees,

which came out well; however, our enthusiastically placed decorations meant it could not slot together.

'Oh dear,' hatchling no1 said. 'I suppose we'll just have to eat it and start again.'

The hardships, I tell ya.

Next, we baked a dozen and a half star shaped sugar cookies.

Frosted, stacked and then glittered.

To make a lovely Christmas tree. 

The hatchlings are enthused, they have plans for a whole Christmas forest. 

Our sugar cookie recipe, should you need one can be found here:

http://followingourrainbow.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/advent-day-14-filling-cookie-jar.html

Advent day 10: Easy crafts for little hands

Candy cane mice.

Pipe cleaner snow flakes.

And snowy ornaments.

Advent day 8: Mince pies

Busy weekend over.

Lots of performances, parties, cinema trips, sleepover friends, and just non - stop busy.

Somehow, it is just that time of year.

And now, we are launching into an equally busy week.

There is another party Monday night, and the house, which has become a stop gap between places, is in desperate need of a little TLC.

That isn't really the fun part of the holiday though, is it?

The cleaning and laundry.

We've needed portable, shareable type goodies this weekend.

Hence, we made mince pies,

in giant batches. 

Which you will find the recipe for here:

http://followingourrainbow.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/mice-pies.html

and of course serve with spoonfuls of brandy cream.