Christmas Recipes

If you're all like me you're probably so over the holiday food but I decided to post a recipe or two for the next few days of some of my favorite goodies from 2009.

Marm’s Cinnamon Buns

These top the list. They were by far the best tasting and I really liked that I could freeze them and make them later. I tweeked the recipe a bit and added in some King Authur Flour Cinnamon Filling and the Icing making them the solid winner for the number one spot.

Makes 24 Cinnamon buns

Place the following ingredients in your mixer equipped with dough hook:

1 1/2 c. very warm water

3 Tbsp. powdered milk (finally a recipe you can use powdered milk in!)

2 C. All purpose flour

2 Tbsp. yeast

Mix on a low speed until combined and then add in:

3/4 C. Raw or granulated sugar

2 tsp. Sea salt

3 Eggs

3/4 C. Oil (safflower, corn or canola)

Unbleached all purpose flour will be used in the next step.

Mix briefly and then add, 1 cup at a time, approximately 6 more cups of flour. Add flour carefully as the full 5 cups may not be needed. You want a soft, workable dough. Knead for 5 minutes on a medium speed. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured suftace. Divide into 2 equal parts. Roll each part on the floured surface to a rectangle. Spread with 1/2 cup Cinnamon Filling for each rectangle.

Cinnamon Filling

1 C. Brown Sugar

3 Tbsp. Ground cinnamon

1/3 C. Butter or Margarine Power (another use for that food storage)

(Note: If you have the cinnamon filling with the margarine powder you will have to add some water or oil. Add a Tbsp. at a time to 1 cup of dry cinnamon filling powder until you get a paste that can be spread over the dough. About 4-5 Tbsp. of water)

Roll up tightly, beginning at wide side. Seal well by pinching edges together. Even up roll by stretching slightly where needed. Cut roll unto 1 1/2 inch sections. Place in greased baking pans, you can use 2 9X13 or 8" round cake pans, cut side up, with a small space between rolls. Use wet fingertips to flatten and even out rolls if they are uneven. Let rise until puffy. This should take about 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Note: If you want to bake later you can put them in the fridge tightly covered with saran wrap for up to 16 hours and then bake or freeze them in the freezer for up to 2 months. If you freeze them. Simply take them out the night before you want to bake them and place them in the fridge overnight. Pull out an hour before you want to bake them and let rise a second time in a warm place. Bake as directed.

To bake: Place in 350 oven and bake for 20-25 minutes. Ice while still warm.

Icing

3 oz Cream Cheese

1/4 c. Butter, softened

1 1/2 c. 10X sugar

1/2 tsp. Vanilla

Mix cream cheese and butter first, then add vanilla and 10X sugar. Mix well and place in a ziplock sandwich bag. Clip small hole in the corner of bag and use to pipe over warm cinnamon buns. Looks so impressive! Enjoy!

Tomorrow's post will be Bacon, Cheese and Chive Scones.

Christmas Message

It's the day after Christmas and the house is quite. Emil took Kirstin and Emil M. out to do some returns and Noah's at a friends house playing. It seems that this is the perfect time to do my Christmas message. This is my substitute for the cards I usually send since I just couldn't bear to do them this year without Kai. Maybe next year.

As you all know it's been the most difficult year in our lives. However, the faith and love we have felt from our Savior and Heavenly Father have pulled us through. I have never felt so loved, so thought of, so prayed for and treated kindly and tenderly in my entire life.

I guess my Christmas message is pretty much what my message has been this entire year. Invite the Lord to be actively involved in your life. Love Him, have faith in Him and you will be a better person for it. I love you all. I think of you often. I pray for your well being and am overwhelmed at how blessed we have been and continue to be.

With much Love - Kathryn

Snow for Christmas

We had quite a bit of excitement over the weekend. Our family has made it a tradition to go to the temple and see the temple lights each Christmas. This past weekend was our trip. First we went to the Smithsonian of Art. We didn't spend too much time there but enjoyed seeing the French and Dutch painters. Some were so talented. We also walked outside and had fun seeing some outdoor sculpture. This cube pyramid was different but we loved the squirrel on top the most.

He's like "Here I am. Squirrel King!" Well that's what it sounded like to me. After that we went to the Visitors Center at the Temple. Every night in December they have someone come perform. On this night it was The Mormon Orchestra of Washington, D.C. They played about an hour. They were amazing and played quite a few songs from the Nutcracker Suite. We had a great time listening to them. Here's the temple on Friday night.

After the performance we ate dinner and headed to our hotel. It started to snow just as we were checking in. Saturday some friends of ours were getting sealed at the temple and Emil was going through with them. Here was our view from the hotel room on Saturday morning.

When I dropped him off at 8am on Saturday this is what the temple looked like.

You may have heard that there was a blizzard in D.C. this weekend. The kids thought it was so cool! Driving in it was a bit harrowing. I dropped Emil off at 8 then drove back to the Hotel to pack up the kids. Everything was closing down because the snow was so bad. We got stuck trying to get back to the temple to pick up Emil at 11am. They ended up getting out late so we got to sit in the car waiting for about a hour and a half. At least we had a movie to watch. Thank Heaven for DVD's.

Here is a little of what our waiting time was like.

We tried to get home but it the interstate was crazy, jackknifed tractor trailers, stuck cars, the snow was so thick on the road you couldn't even see the road or the lines for the lanes for that matter. We decided to play it safe and get a room for the night so we spent the night on Saturday in Woodbridge, VA.

Sunday we took some more pictures of the snow.

I know it totally looks like she's standing up but she's really on her knees.

This one was of Emil on the sidewalk where our car was parked. It was crazy but the kids had fun pelting eachother with snowballs and we finally did get home on Sunday at about 1pm. No snow here at home only... you guessed rain! (Ugh!)

What an adventure!

My Christmas baking has included Cinnamon Buns!

Chocolate covered Turtles, Ginger Crinkles.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread, Bacon,Cheese and Chive Scones.

I still have some baking to do for this week but thankfully I'm mostly done with the gift baking. Wish you were here to help me bake! Have a great week. I'm not doing Christmas Cards this year. It was just one of those things I couldn't bring myself to do but I'll send out a Christmas Blog before Friday I promise. Enjoy the week and remember to "Just Breathe". (I personally have a necklace that someone gave me that says that and I wear it when I need some perspective to remind me of what matters.)

Kai's Birthday

December 12, 2008

Yesterday was Kai's Birthday. It was a beautiful day.

We met Emil's immediate family along with our good friends, the Cahills, at Kai's grave at about 1:45 in the afternoon. The sky was cloudy but not raining. The wind was calm and the temps were comfortable in the 50's. We said a prayer, read a scripture and had balloons. As we each shared our favorite memory we had of Kai we released a balloons into the sky.

There were tears and laughter as we remembered our sweet, tender, and mischievous, son, brother, grandson, nephew and friend.

I feel such a profound joy that we held him and loved him in this life and equal peace and comfort knowing that he has begun an eternal journey with our Heavenly Father. How grateful I am to have this knowledge! It has made all the difference in the world.

I know many of you have prayed and fasted and worried on behalf of our family over the past almost 8 months since Kai's passing. Thank you. Your prayers have lifted us up, strengthened our resolve, spoken peace to our souls and love to our hearts.

I feel as the Apostle Paul who declared "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." Philippians 4:13 and I know the reason I feel this strength is in large part because of your many prayers on our behalf.

I just wanted to share with you the feelings and events of our beautiful day. Thank you for keeping us in your prayers. Yesterday and always.

Be Still and know that I am God, Psalm 46:10

I'm trying to learn to be still but it's a challenge.

Blaze however, seems to have mastered it effortlessly with her stuffed little buddy here.

This past week was a hard one. We enjoyed Thanksgiving with Emil's side of the family and it was nice to get together but thoughts naturally turned to missing Kai and that was difficult. I am so thankful for Emil and the love that we share. He is amazing.

On Friday I pulled out the Christmas tree and put it up. (We'll trim it tonight for family night.)I pulled out the Willow Tree Nativity that I gotten over the years and put it up on the bookcase. This is where it's gone every year and I do so enjoy seeing the different nativities that I have being displayed that way come December.

I space them out and arrange them just so.(Evenly spaced over the three sections. Shepherds in the left section, Wise Men to the right and Mary, Joseph and Jesus in the center.) It always occurs that one of the little kids will rearrange them and then I have to come back and do it over again. This year I was thinking that it wouldn't be a problem since it was usually Kai that I would discover rearranging.

Later on that night, when I was visiting with a friend, Noah caught my eye. He was busily cozying everyone closer to Jesus, Mary and Joseph in the Nativity.

It seems that children of all ages always want to see everyone in the nativity as close to the Christ child as possible. So for the first time I'm not rearranging the nativity. I'm trying to be still and know what my 9 year-old Noah already knows. We all should want to be as close to Christ as we possibly can be.

Correction

Emil is making me post a correction. He was appalled when he saw a picture of his garage. He said I had to tell everyone the first and second picture posted are after we emptied everything out of his cabinets that we were storing things in and got rid of them. (I think I made that perfectly clear in my second paragraph but he still is making type this disclaimer.) So there you are my sweet. Your reputation is cleared. You are officially not a garage piggy! XXXOOOO

Rain, Rain, go away!

This past week was very busy. Monday I took Kirstin back into the Dr.'s for a bad cough. Turns out she caught a cold after the flu. She's just lucky like that I guess....

Wednesday Emil decided to try to do his garage. Here's what we're working with.

We need to be able to park one of the cars in the garage. With Emil M. driving it's getting very tough on our lawn to keep having to drive through it so we needed to buy some cabinets and clear out things.

He did have 3 large cabinets from the Coast Guard base and a particle board cube shelving thingy that he had built but it just wasn't cutting it so we got some new cabinets. We painted the floor and worked on that the entire time the Nor'easter was howling.

I thought that it might be fun to climb the rock wall with all the water around it. That way if you fell it would be a bit splashy!

Here's the view from the back door. We will be drying out for weeks! They're calling for rain this weekend too. Lucky we have the canoes! Of course I needed to bake Sticky Buns on Friday when I found out there was no school again. It was a strict case of food therapy I promise you. They were so good. I ate way too many. This was the pre-rise shot.

I had to take Kirstin back into the Dr. on Friday because she had Pink Eye. (Mono anyone? Oh Kirstin, you'll take a case of that? Sure, why not, you've had everything else!) She's been sick for about 2 weeks and I'm going crazy. Since she was contagious I wouldn't let her go to any friends houses and it was about to kill us both. I could not send her back to school fast enough this morning!

It wasn't all bad though and Emil and I really did make quite a dent in the garage. We still need to finish up a few things but it's looking quite a good bit better. I did tweak my back while working on the floor so I'm going to the chiropractor tonight for the first time. Hope it helps.

My Dad had to have surgery but he's on the mend. I'm so thankful that my sister was able to go be with my Mom for a little while. I have a great family. I couldn't ask for better.

Just the Facts Mam!

Was that Dragnet? I'm not sure but I know it was a police show. Noah decided to be a FBI agent this Halloween. Super simple costume! Church clothes, shades, a concealed weapon and an official badge and we were done.

We invited his friend Colton Baker over and they had fun running the neighborhood.

Kirstin got sick on Wednesday night and I had to take her to the ER. I was a bit scared when she woke up sobbing and moaning at 1am with a high fever. We were in and out of the ER relatively quickly and back home by 3:45 with the diagnosis of Influenza. They didn't actually test to see if it was H1N1 but she's been pretty miserable most of the weekend. Today her fever finally came down but now she's got a nasty cough. Technically she can go back to school once she's fever free for 24 hours but I think I might try to keep her home an extra day. Last Monday they played one of their last soccer games in the rain with the temp at about 60 degrees. I think that was what pushed her over the edge. She missed the soccer tournament this past saturday. They won 2 games and lost one. I'm not sure where they placed. She was VERY sad to miss the tournament and one of the other key players was out with the flu as well. I was sad for her. She worked so hard this year playing.

Emil M. got to hand out candy all by his self since all Kirstin would have been giving out was sickness. (Don't feel too sad for her I finally let her watch Twlight Halloween night instead. After all the waiting she wasn't that impressed. She thought the acting could have been better. So did I.)

This week I moved Kai's bed to Noah's room. I had asked Noah if he would like to have it in his room so when he had sleepovers he could have an extra bed for his friends and he thought that would be cool. After that I re-arranged Kai's room. Emil suggested that we use his room for a reading room and I loved the idea.

Here's how it looks right now but eventually we may move the two large bookcases in from the playroom. I love it. I'm going to put up some of the extra pictures we have of Kai in there. It's a sunny place to sit and read or just think about Kai. I'm very happy with how it's worked out. A week ago Sunday was six months since he passed and I felt that it was time to make some changes.

On Tuesday I went through all the cards and letters we received after

the funeral and spent some time crying. It's harder for me to look back at that time then it was to live it in some ways. I'm not sure why. I think that part of it may be that I work best when I have a goal or objective. During that time there was so much that needed to get done. So many arrangements that had to be made that I stayed continually focused and that was helpful to me, but remembering it now - all that I think about is the rawness of the emotions. This I find hard. I have found it helpful to take the time, when the emotions hit, to feel them and allow myself time to mourn and cry. For me, this is best done alone. Thankfully the moment never last too terribly long and I can always have the peace of knowing that we will be with Kai again someday. This knowledge is the balm that soothes my heart.

Red Ribbon Week

This tree was in DC. Isn't it just amazing? I tried to get some pictures of all the leaves changing color but I drove and Kirstin isn't the wiz I am at fast camera pics so this was our lone tree.

This past week was Red Ribbon Week at the schools. Red Ribbon Week is the school campaign for Just Say No to Drugs. Every day is a theme. Kirstin's school had an 80's day. I'm not quite sure what the catch phrase is but she had fun trying to look like I did in the 80's. I tried to explain to her that there were the early 80's and late 80's but it didn't really compute. I had fun doing her bangs and pegging her jeans.

Noah's look was mix and match. So we went with swim trunks and a polar fleece top. Well you get the idea. His newest camera pose is best described as droll.

This week was Emil M.'s court of Honor for Scouts. It's been a very long time since they've had one in our unit so he got 5 merit badges. He's getting ever so closer to his Eagle. He's an outstanding young man and we are very proud of him.

We had a youth temple trip on Saturday. Emil, Myself, Kirstin and Emil M. went up on Friday night and spent the night. Emil's parents were kind enough to take Noah for the weekend and spoil him royally I'm sure. We went to do some sight seeing on Saturday morning.

We wanted to go to the top of the Washington Monument but we needed tickets and they were all already taken for the day so we walked around it and then walked to the Lincoln Memorial. I cannot imagine being talented enough to carve this statue out. It was massive and just as impressive as you have seen it portrayed in countless movies. Lincoln was a truly compassionate president.

I'm thankful that we live so close to the nation's capitol and get to do fun things with the kids like this. Some of us definitely enjoy ourselves more than others. Well, at least on the outside anyway.

The weather was wonderful. It rained a bit but never very hard and the temps were most comfortable.

Kirstin's highlight was the Metro ride. She said she could have ridden it all day. The simple pleasures in life right? Kirstin and I had fun setting up this picture.

In between the Washington Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial is the WWII Memorial with this really cool fountain that I so wanted to walk right into but resisted the urge.

Kirstin and I made Emil M. stand on a lower step so we could be taller than him for once but even then we had to stand on our tiptoes!

However I did have a fun time taking some picks of the ceilings in the underground Metro stations.

I just loved the patterns. I like them better as black and whites then the true color which is very yellowish.

I thought this was a cool platform shot as well.

Come visit us. We have plenty more places we haven't seen and Kirstin will be your tour guide for the Metro!

Overview

First and foremost I'd like to ask you all to keep our dear friends Cori and Blades White and their families in your prayers this week. They lost their baby daughter Kyndal Ann on Wednesday night. She was born by cesarean section on Thursday morning but the cord had wrapped around her neck. Cori and Blades are doing amazing and our hearts are with them. They have the gospel and the peace that only the Savior can give. I know in our own trial the prayers of everyone helped immensely and so this is why I ask this favor of you.

It was hard to hear of a loss so close and brought back some powerful memories as I remembered the events we went through and knew that Cori and Blades will have to walk that same path. Though I have grown so much and the loss of Kai has brought me closer to my Savior than I ever imagined, I never would have chosen this trial, even now when I've gained so much from it, but I can take something good from it. This is one of the amazing things I have learned.

We can not always choose what life may throw at us but we can always choose how we will react to the trials we face and the lessons we learn. My deeper relationship with my Savior is one of the things I choose to take for good. The infinite love of my Heavenly Father another. The beauty of our son, the love and time we had with him and our eternal relationship is yet another. On to lighter things.

On September 25th Kirstin participated in the pre game show for the High School football game with the High School band. Every year they have a 8th Grade Night when all the 8th grade band students come play with the High School band and do a show.

Emil and Emil Michael were on a canoe camping trip where they had to canoe to their camp site and so it was just Noah and I. The night was chilly, somewhere in the upper 50's and a light drizzle was falling. I have to be honest, I was really hoping they would cancel it but no such luck. We sat with some other band families and it was fun to be at a High School football game for the first time since I played in the band my Senior year.

They did a great job and Kirstin really enjoyed herself. The HS band is relatively small. Probably only 70 kids but they give it all their heart. Kirstin's not sure if she's going to play in High School yet. Her love of sports is serious competition and unfortunately many of the sport seasons coincide with the marching band season. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

The soccer season is about half over and they've won a few games. Last Monday was a really close game. They were playing a team they haven't beaten in 15 years. They went into double over time and ended tied 0-0. It was a victory in that they tied them. Kirstin is a defender and worked really hard. All the kids did. I think I like soccer the best of all her sports. They hardly ever stop to do time outs. It's constant action.

Emil M. is busy with seminary, Scouts, Duty to God, the Great American novel and piano. He's working on some new numbers for his Christmas recital so hopefully we will have a new CD this year of some of his songs. Some are, Where are you Christmas? and the Hunchback of Notre Dame. The latter takes about 15 minutes to play in it's entirety.

The Great American Novel is just my nickname for his book he's writing and hoping to publish to fund his mission. The real name is Colonies of Achiris. Writing is a passion with him and he probably logs in about 2-3 hours a day on the computer. That is if his mother doesn't side track him with mundane things like chores. I'm glad he has such a firm resolve and interest in writing. Can I just brag a bit and say I think he get's that from his mother.

This week I canned some scuppernog grape juice. It taste really good but it's cloudy like apple cider. I'm not quite sure why it's not clear. I'm thinking it was the method I cooked the grapes to get the most juice from them before putting it in the jars. Anyway. I had a good time doing it and get a load of this 2 quart canning jar! Have you ever see one this big? Sister Snowden gave me about 8 of them a year or so ago. She found them in her garage. She's in her 80's and said they use to use them all the time when she would can things. I thought it was amazing. I've never seen one so huge!

Other than canning I've been spending a good deal of time with friends asking questions about religion. It's been so rewarding sharing the gospel. I have absolutely loved it! I've got to run. There are dogs to wash, talks to write and pizza fixing to buy. Have a great week!