Going down Memory Lane

I love how cooking and baking certain things in my kitchen brings back so many memories of family and friends that I love so much.  This year, when I started my tradition of making buckeyes for the holidays, I couldn't help but stroll down Memory Lane. 

I started making buckeyes with my mom and sister a long time ago.  My mom made them every year to give as holiday gifts, and when we were old enough, Megan and I loved helping her.  When I went away to college, Angie, Heidi, and Lauren joined in my tradition and we all made buckeyes together every year when we did our gift exchange.  After college was over and we all went our separate ways, I can remember making buckeyes alone in Centerville, and crying because I missed my friends so much.  It wasn't long, though, until I had made some new, amazing friends and made buckeyes (and more memories!) with Lindsay and Sara.  And when we moved to New York, I introduced buckeye making to Danielle and Shara during a playdate with all our boys.  Last year, Jarrod joined me in my buckeye making extravaganza, and this year, my favorite little helper, Gavin joined in.  Call me crazy, but the whole time I was making buckeyes this year, I was thinking about all those lovely ladies that have made the delectable desserts with me in the past and how the tradition started so long ago with my mom in 'Dixie's Diner.'  One day, I'll be in the kitchen making them with my own daughter...and I can't wait!

 So, how do you make these wonderful things?  Well, here you go!

Start with two sticks of softened butter.

Add 2 cups of peanut butter.

Then, add 6 cups of powdered sugar and 2 tsp. vanilla.

Get your hands dirty and start mixing!  Really...your hands are best for this part.

You'll eventually end up with a ball of peanut butter mixture like this....

Start taking chunks of the peanut butter mixture and roll it between your hands to make small balls.  I place mine on a nonstick baking sheet.

This is what Gavin's plate of rolled buckeyes looked like! :)

Place the buckeyes in the refrigerator to get cold.

In the meantime, melt 12 oz. of chocolate chips and about 1/2-3/4 bar of paraffin wax (I use Gulf Wax - it's near the canning supplies at the grocery store) in a double boiler.

When the chocolate has melted and the peanut butter balls are chilled, use a toothpick to dip the buckeyes in the chocolate about 2/3 of the way up.  You'll end up with a small section of peanut butter left to be seen.  Transfer them back to the baking sheet, pinch the hole to close it up, and then chill again.  

I realized as I was posting this that I didn't get pictures of the dipping process or the final product.  I did get this one of Gavin trying to dip his... 

And if you want to see what the buckeyes will look like, just check this old blog post: Buckeyes

Enjoy!

Sugar Cookies

Taking photographs to document our lives is so important to me, and almost like a therapy.  When I haven't taken many pictures, I feel out of sorts.  The problem is, Jarrod and I don't share this love.  So, it's usually me behind the camera.  If I ask him to take pictures for me, he will...but usually not as many as I would have taken!  Thank goodness for my self-timer.  One of my favorite blogs is My Sweet Chaos.  I love how she uses her self-timer and doesn't care if someone's head is cut off or the pic isn't centered.  Her photos are beautiful.  She inspires me to use my timer more and capture things Gavin and I do together.

After pumpkin carving, Gav and I made sugar cookie cut-outs.  I set up the timer to take 10 continuous photos and kept a few of my faves.

 

 Of course, eating them was Gavin's favorite part!

Dora's Birthday!

Though I may not be a fan of Dora, Gavin is....so when I saw Dora's Birthday Adventure on tv, I was nice to enough to DVR it for him.  It was on around bedtime so I didn't let him watch it that night, plus I knew we didn't have anything big planned for the next day so I decided to make a day out of it.

We headed to Walmart for a few groceries and picked up some cake mix and frosting.  Then it was home to start baking.  Gavin loves cooking with me!

Of course, when we're doing any cooking, he wants to taste it....I'm always nervous of the uncooked egg in the batter, but he really wanted some.  So, I scraped off half of the batter and let him lick a little off one beater. 

Checking out our work....

While Gavin napped, the cupcakes cooled and I added the frosting.  Once he woke up,

I let him do the sprinkles.

I don't know why it's so hard to get him to smile for me on command.  I get great candid smiling shots, but if I say, 'Look at mommy and smile,' I get goofy shots. 

Our finished cupcakes!

Time to enjoy the show and the cupcakes!

And, as usual, there's Shirley, waiting for any crumbs!  She's gotten really bad about begging for food at the table since Gracie's been coming and would give her food.  I have to try harder and remember to put her outside or in the bedroom when there's food around.  She's been stealing food off the blue table recently...

Family Day

Saturday after we volunteered, we decided to make some Christmas cookies and then play in the snow some (snow pictures coming tomorrow). Well, Jarrod helped me make the cookies and Gavin really wasn't all that interested (but I made him get up on the chair anyway so I could get some pictures! haha...) I ended up doing most of the decorating. Jarrod wasn't interested in that part, and Gavin tried helping, but, well....you'll see how that turned out!

Can you tell how many sprinkles he put on that one cookie? It was so funny to see them pouring out in the same spot. Oh well!

Fun Times Friday

I love that Gavin is getting to the age where we can do crafts (minus coloring since crayons still get eaten) and I'm excited to do some baking this holiday season. On Tuesday, we surprised Daddy with some of his favorite holiday treat. Gavin loved helping! I put 3 M&Ms per pretzel, but you can tell which ones he helped with, because they have 5 or 6. :) He was just grabbing handfuls of M&Ms and laying them on the chocolate.

So, how do we make these? Melt white chocolate chips in a double boiler, stirring frequently. Then, take a small spoon to drop the melted chocolate on the pretzels. (I line the pretzels on wax paper first.) Top with M&Ms and let the chocolate harden before removing from the wax paper. Simple and oh so yummy! The perfect combination of salty and sweet.