snow on snow on snow

This is us about to head out the door to church today. I'm going to miss that mug on the right next week. I'm being shipped off to Vegas so that Nate can have 5 days to himself to study for finals. I guess I distract him. Although I would think anything would be more appealing than studying for finals. See how much fun he is having?

What you can't depict from the picture is that Nate's stomach is filled with homemade cookies, Bing Crosby is singing Christmas songs, and it smells like Christmas in our little apartment. We are trying to get in the spirit despite the lack of snow. To me, snow = Christmas.
I just interrupted my blogging to talk to Grandma Martin for an hour and a half. She found out recently that she has a malignant tumor in her colon and will be going in for surgery on Dec. 14th which means she won't be coming up to PA for Christmas. Bummer. No pun intended. (Grandma would laugh at that joke, so I'm leaving it.)
Oh, Christmas. I can't wait to see snow. I tried decorating yesterday and ended up taking down half of what I'd put up. It just didn't look right. Even though I've spent plenty of Christmas holidays with Grandma in Florida, I can't get used to red and greed elves prancing around my bookshelf while palm trees sway outside. I made that sound kinda nice. It doesn't work, I tell you. I'll have to get my fill in PA. Until then, I'm off to Vegas to make gingerbread houses.

French Breakfast Puffs

I made French breakfast puffs this morning! They were one of my favorite things that mom used to make, and Nate had never had them. They were just like I remembered - warm and fluffy in the middle, and buttery and sweet on the outside. Nate had 5. Here's the recipe in case I somehow lose it one day.

1/3 cup shortening
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted

1. Heat oven to 350ºF. Grease 15 medium muffin cups, 2 1/2x1 1/4 inches.
2. Mix shortening, 1/2 cup sugar and the egg thoroughly in large bowl. Stir in flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg alternately with milk. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups.
3. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown.
4. Mix 1/2 cup sugar and the cinnamon. Roll hot muffins immediately in melted butter, then in sugar-cinnamon mixture. Serve hot. Makes 12.

Like, Happy Turkey Day!

I'm relieved to say that Thanksgiving was a major success. It was my first time cooking a turkey, and I was more than a bit nervous. I mapped out the timing of everything the night before to make sure I'd have time enough to fix any turkey issues if they arose. I got up at 6 am to start to turkey. Over zealous? Yes, but I was prepared and stress-free all morning while cooking. Aside from turkey, we had mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, green bean casserole, fresh salad, dinner rolls (courtesy of Nate), limeade (also Nate), pumpkin pie (Costco - only $6! Who can pass that up?), and vanilla ice cream. We kept it pretty simple and skipped the stuffing and cranberry sauce. Neither of us like those much. The turkey was the best I'd ever had, and I think Nate said the same. We had the missionaries over - Elder Milne and Elder Reddish. They both said that the turkey was super moist, unlike all the turkey they'd ever had. Score! I'd found the cooking instructions on a cooking website - simplyrecipes.com. I cooked the turkey breast-side down and reduced the heat the longer it was in the oven. That's it. Simple, but it made a huge difference.

Here we are picking all the meat off the turkey. I don't know why it's blurry.


Here's our spread before the feast. We had glasses for the limeade, too. The plastic cups were for water. We're not completely ghetto. :)





Nate and I went to see Tangled at 3:30. He'd gotten free tickets. Nate's awesome like that. The movie was surprisingly good, a lot like the old Disney musicals. It reminded me of Beauty and the Beast, and I love that movie. Good music, good script, good story, good everything.

We spent the rest of the day lazing about. We had started watching Avatar the night before and so finished it in the evening. And then, of course, we had leftovers for dinner. Yum!