Christmas Dinner

I had the table all set for Christmas dinner!  I used my china for the first time in YEARS!!  It's the set that was my mothers.  I love it!  It's so fun to get out the good place settings, something I should do more often!

I made Shirley Temples for the girls... they loved it!

We brined our first turkey this year.  It's quite a process but it was so good!  We used Roger and Sharon Hubbard's recipe. (see below)   I had to watch a video on how to truss a turkey, 'cuz I had no idea...

http://www.foodnetwork.com/how-to-truss-a-turkey/video/index.html

The final product... so yummy!  It was picture perfect too! 

Brined Roasted Turkey (serves 10-12)

3 cups Morton Kosher Salt

2 cups sugar
Turkey (12-14) lbs., rinsed thoroughly, giblets, neck and tailpiece removed.
1 medium onion, chopped coarse
1 carrot, chopped coarse
1 celery rib, chopped coarse
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
More butter for basting

 1.  Dissolve salt and sugar in 2 gallons of cold water in stock pot or large bucket.  (I used my cooler and lined it with a garbage bag, I had to use a little bit more water to cover it). Add turkey and refrigerate or set in very cool spot (about 40 degrees-we sat ours outside) for 4-6 hours. *Turkey must be completely covered with water. We had to put a weight on the turkey to keep it from floating.  You can use a brining bag as well.

2.  Remove turkey from water and rinse well under cool running water. Pat dry inside and out with paper towels. Place turkey breast side up on flat wire rack set over rimmed baking sheet and refrigerate, uncovered, 8-24 hours.

3.  Adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat oven to 400 degrees. Toss onion, carrot, celery and thyme and 1 tablespoon butter in medium bowl. Fill cavity with mixture. Tuck wings behind back and truss turkey.

4.  Brush turkey breast with butter, then set turkey breast side down on foil lined V rack sprayed with no stick cooking spray. Brush back of turkey with butter. Pour 1 cup water ing pan. Roast 45 minutes.

5.  Remove roasting pan with turkey from oven, brush back with butter. Using thick wads of paper towels rotate turkey leg/wing side up. If liquid in bottom of roasting pan has evaporated, add ½ cup water. Roast 15 minutes longer.

6.  Remove roasting pan with turkey from oven, brush exposed surfaces with butter. Using thick wads of paper towels rotate turkey second leg/wing side up. If liquid in bottom of roasting pan has evaporated, add ½ cup water. Roast 15 minutes longer.

7.   Remove roasting pan with turkey from oven, brush exposed surfaces with butter. Using thick wads of paper towels rotate turkey breast side up. Roast until thickest part of breast registers 165 degrees and thickest part of thigh registers 170-175 degrees on instant read thermometer 30-45 minutes longer. Move turkey from rack to carving board and let rest about 20-30 minutes. Carve and serve.

(The last time we did this, we did not do the leg/wing rotations. We added the 15 minutes for each of those rotations to the breast side down and breast side up roasting times.)

Christmas Eve~at home

Going to the candle light service at church... my favorite!

The girls worked all day to make these pictures for Santa and his elves.

They worked really hard and when they woke up the Christmas morning, they found candy canes in their rooms with a little bit of Elf dust.  The elves leave dust where ever they go, so they must have been checking on them to make sure they were snug in their bed.

Mmmmm Pecan Pie is ready for tomorrow!  This is my Grandma King's Pecan Pie recipe and it is scrumptious!

Ginger Bread Houses!

Mrs. Moore with Paige, Elise and Ella.  I love this lady!

The first graders all met in the cafeteria to make ginger bread houses.  The kids had a blast and I think they ate at least half of the candy.  I saw so many kids just eating huge dollops of frosting.. and lots of sticky fingers!  It was fun.

My good friend Jescica Freundl and her daughter Natalie.

Caroline and Ella Murphy

Elise's classmate Payton-  such a sweet kiddo.

Dave and Sam Gourley

The finished project.

Horizon had an all-school sing-a-long before they made the ginger bread houses and the teachers surprised the kids with this flash mob dance.  It was great and the kids went WILD as you can hear!  The Principal is Mr. Salmon and he is the one in front on the elf suit.

Christmas in Minnesota~ December 16-18th, 2011

We went up to Minnesota for our family Christmas.  We had our annual Christmas party at my aunt Louise's house in Victoria, MN.

Christmas ornaments from Aunt Mollie... a yearly tradition.

Dad had to try on the Hello Kitty headband!

Lauren is working on her new glow book!

We tried to fancy it up a bit with hot rollers... our first attempt, turned out super cute!

Grandma and Grandpa Divine

Matt, Mollie and Charlie, he had the cutest suspenders on!

It's hard to get a photo with all of the kids... Anthony would have no part of it so we took it without him.

Alexis and Logan Mann, Kaylee Barsness and the Divine kiddos.

Grandma bought all of the kids recorders but Charlie got Moraccas... wish we would've got those.. they are SOOO much quieter!

I had to put these extra photos in because Eric kept trying to hide behind me, we realized that he wore the same shirt last year and it didn't want anyone to really be able to see it in the photo... silly man!

Dave and Louise Barsness, Marcus, Sarah, Kaylee and Anthony Foster, Joe and Melissa Barsness

Kevin, Jenny, Alexis and Logan Mann

This is a great video of Dad and Lauren playing Operation!



You can get a sense of just how "quiet" it is at Louise's house!



I love this video because Charlie would hand Eric a Moracca and Eric would hand it back and then Charlie would hand him another one, and Eric would hand it back... and so on.




Another hand off to Eric! 




This is hilarious- Charlie does this funny walk and it makes me laugh every time.... I love this kid!



Opening gifts.

And the baking is done... almost... phew!

One of Eric's favorites... Peanut Butter Star Cookies

First time making Macaroons... just so-so!

A new one for me, Chocolate Crinkles... Eric loves these, nice an soft!

Of course I had to make sugar cookies, but I was lazy and made cirlces instead of cut-outs, I just didn't have it in me this year... they are still yummy!

These are my newest cookie and they are SOOOO yummy.  They are White Chocolate Cherry Shortbread cookies... scrumptious!!

Plenty extra for when I need my next chocolate fix!

These were my FLOP cookies this year.  It was a new recipe made with cookie dough, and you knead in crushed pretzels, make into balls and put in mini-muffin tins, then add chocolate chips and caramel bits... they turned out horrible, the dough seemed dry and I sprayed the pan like it said but only the top halves would come out of the tin..... bummer, you are supposed to dip the tops in chocolate but these are just going in the trash....

I did make Cashew cookies and Dipped Pretzels, just forgot the photos, I still have to make Maple Fudge and Peanut Butter Fudge... THEN I will be done!

Now I get to package these all up and give them to my awesome neighbors before I eat them all!