Cinnamon Rolls

Christmas morning I made homemade cinnamon rolls. They were ewey-gooey, light and fluffy, sticky, cinnamon-y delicious! I actually couldn't believe how good they were! Oh MY! They were also easier to make than I thought, and didn't take that much time - you just have to make sure you are home for a while so you will be there to roll them out after they rise and let them rise again. I got the recipe at Allrecipes.com. My friend Anita also posted her recipe for me. I urge you to try these. You'll thank me for it. Or you'll hate me for it. Either way, you'll enjoy it!

Oh, by the way, I know what you are thinking, and, yes, I doubled the recipe. These were the leftovers that I stuck in a little skillet. I - heart - cast-iron! Another by-the-way, I personally prefer the powdered sugar and milk icing over the cream cheese icing, but I didn't try Anita's cream cheese icing, perhaps it's better.

A few funny Christmas things

• Cameron was changing the clothes on her new babydoll and I was helping her, but it was difficult. She said - I know! I'll go get the constructions!
• Santa had brought a gift for CJ. We let CJ in this morning so he could be downstairs when the kids came down. He hung out for a while then all of a sudden, grabbed something and excitedly headed to the back door. He came back and nuzzled Mark's hand for Mark to take him out. He had found his gift from Santa! It was chicken-scented.
• I actually grabbed the video camera and did some videoing. I can't seem to remember that the green arrow means pause and the red dot means go. Red dot = stop in my mind. I filmed half of the time without the camera running. My family got used to me asking the same questions and re-filming the scene. Sigh. I got some really funny looks the first time I did it! We will see how my videoing turns out!
• Mark asked Cameron if she had a good Christmas. She said, "UM, I had a medium Christmas." "Oh," Mark said, "Really? What do you mean?" "Well, I miss my best friend. If she had been here, it would have been fantastic!"

Christmas Day

was a very nice, relaxing, stay in your jammies all day type of day. My father in law texted us Christmas morning when the kids were ready to come downstairs and see what Santa brought. I woke up thinking, wow, pawpaw's gone all techy on us. Haha! Santa was spot-on this year. So were the parents and grandparents. It was so much fun to see how excited the kids were over their gifts.

It was great staying home all day, not having to go anywhere, having relatives drop in (and not even caring I was still in my jammies!) I did mop the kitchen floor and then felt bad, as it hit me that today was a day to honor the Lord and rest, to spend time with family and enjoy relaxing, not using the free time to get a little housework done. So I stopped and did something else I enjoyed- I did some cooking. I also took CJ on a two mile walk then soaked in a bubble bath.

We still have plenty of food, including a wonderful smoked turkey Audwin brought that was smoked in Tyler Texas. Gotta love that Texas barbeque! This morning, in between Santa gifts and other gifts, we ate the homemade cinnamon rolls I made and breakfast casserole. It was my first time to make cinnamon rolls, and oh my, they were SO good! Raeley hugged me last night when she realized I was up late (midnight) preparing the breakfast casserole - one of her favorites. The cinnamon rolls may be a new tradition!

My highlights were

• seeing Cameron ride her bike through the house in a winter princess dress and a new babydoll in the front basket,
• seeing the look of surprise on Mark's face when he opened both gifts from me, and were excited. Seldom am I able to think of something to get my husband that he really gets excited about. I did it this year!
• Also, Jonathan following me around full of excitement (as I was looking for something for Cameron), talking on and on about all kinds of stuff.
• Robert fooling with one of his new gadgets and impressing me with his quick knowledge of such objects.
• Raeley enthralled in her new photography book and being super sweet and helpful all day long.

I must say that I am excited it's the weekend and I have a few more days to veg out and spend time with my family -lazy style! My goal is to play with all of their toys with them (except a few annoying wii games). And we still have more goodies to eat (cheese ball and the smoked turkey)!

Our Christmas Eve Meal

Sandi, Mark's sister

Cameron, being teased by Uncle Audwin (Sandi's husband)

Martha (Mark's mom) and her brother, who we call Sonny

We had a great Christmas. Christmas Eve Mark's family came to our house for our big Christmas meal. I love entertaining and had so much fun getting ready for the event. As you could tell by my previous posts, I've been so busy I didn't have much time to prepare in advance for Christmas Eve (which included not cleaning the house!). I started cooking at 12:30 and had everything ready in time to make the Christmas Eve service at our church. It was so nice to stop and be still for an hour on Christmas Eve and focus on Christ, sing traditional Christmas Carols, and take communion.

This was my first year to make dressing and I was a little nervous. My mom makes the best cornbread dressing, and it's the same recipe that Mark's family grew up with. It turned out well and was even better today - yum! I am glad that I am able to successfully continue the tradition.

To start the night off, we had hot pepper jelly over cream cheese and spicy Dundee dip served with crackers. I FORGOT the cheese ball - one of my highlights because I only make it once a year and it is our family's favorite. We had turkey and dressing, asparagus casserole, sweet potato casserole, Nikki's (Mark's Aunt) Buttermilk Salad, green peas with pearl onions and mushrooms, Sister Shubert rolls, Cranberry relish, celery stuffed pimento and cheese (which I almost forgot!). Sandi (Mark's sister) made her pecan pie and we had the traditional egg nog mixed with ice cream. If you've never mixed your egg nog with ice cream you gotta try this!

We had a bit of uninvited excitement right before the meal. Mark's great aunt, Bessie, passed out. She's 94 and Martha, Mark's mom noticed she was leaning funny, and helped break her fall. I tried to help pick her up, and the two of us couldn't do it so Mitchell (Mark's dad) took over. Mark called 911 and I ran to our neighbor's house, who is a doctor, but she wasn't home. The fire department came first, then the ambulance. She was only out for a minute, but her eyes rolled back, and she was an ashy-grey color, so it gave us all a BIG scare. Her check up went well, so the paramedics left and she stayed with us, we sat down to the meal, and the night went on as usual.

Mark's family exchanges gifts Christmas Eve, and Cameron made a gift for each of her great-great aunts and her great aunts, and she was so excited to be able to pass out her hand made gifts. The kids only open one or two gifts from Mark's family on Christmas Eve and we save the rest for Christmas morning so the night doesn't revolve around the kids. As a matter of fact, not much of the evening has activities for our children because there are so many adults. Cameron was a little upset about this, but I think it is a good time of service for our children as we serve our elderly relatives (and not so elderly) and focus on them all evening. Some years we are able to merge the two, but not this year. We even forgot to set out Santa's cookies!

The night went extremely well, and at 10:30 we finally had the kids get ready for bed, which is when our company started leaving. Mark's aunt, Ann, lives outside of Tupelo, so I was surprised she stayed that late. It's always nice when the evening gets unexpectedly late because everyone is having such a good time. We had 15 people over, including Nikki's mom who is 96. We felt very blessed as we were surrounded by family and reminded how precious health is.

I'm making a list...

Wow, you know, Santa has something right on about making a list and checking it twice. I had a great, very productive day today. I made my list, which I posted yesterday. I checked twice -several times in fact. I got so much accomplished. Now, the Christmas cards, keep holding your breath on that one. We just got back from a Christmas party, the kids are getting ready for bed, and then we are going to have Christmas devotionals. I spent time reading to Cameron today, and we made a Christmas ornament together. Once again she showed her problem solving skills by figuring out a better way to make the ornament than I was proposing. I also was able to spend time with Raeley, Robert, and Jonathan baking Christmas goodies. I tried to get them to make ornaments, too, but as Jonathan said, "It just doesn't feel like Christmas right now. It's sneaking up on me. Maybe I'll feel like it tomorrow."

Hmm, sometimes this season doesn't feel quite like Christmas yet either. I know for me, it's because I've been so busy with work. We've had lots of Hot Apple Cider, put up lots of decorations, listened to lots of Christmas music, seen lots of people. Hopefully pausing for the Christmas devotionals tonight will change that. It's time to change focus and slow down for an hour and be together -the just us family together.

So today was very productive. And that was with at least half a day of work. My list for tomorrow? You bet I'm making a list!

• Finish up for work (hopefully, so I can have off till next Monday - Yay!)
• Make a grocery list and go shopping for Christmas eve and Christmas day meal
• Cook the cornbread and get the onions and celery ready for the dressing
• Start on the homemade cinnamon rolls the kids have requested for Christmas morning (Anita - help!)
• Finish holiday baking
• Pass out gifts to Scout Leaders and Basketball Coaches
• Plan after Christmas Party
• Christmas Cards to staff at least!
• Go to Cotton Plant (Not sure if it is a place or a town. Sounds like a place, but may be a town!) to see the lights. Anyone want to come?
• Wrap gifts
• Finish Christmas decorations before company comes in town
• Gingerbread House (Kids have requested it - last year they didn't seem too excited so I thought we'd skip it this year. Wrong!)
• Mundane cleaning stuff I won't bore you with

Now it's time for our Christmas devotional. Taking time out for the important stuff. Maybe I'll have time to read another book to Cameron, too!