To Two of Our Favorite People...

We love you and miss you very much!

Hopefully by now you have received our delivery. We wanted to make your holiday more scrumptious - we hope you don't mind! And if you need some suggestions, try this, this and this.

And for the rest of you, here's my mom's ultimate lasagna recipe (you know, the kind of recipe that grown men want their wives to make "just like my mom did").

Ingredients:
Italian sausage
Jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce (a.k.a. Prego)
Large container of ricotta cheese
2 eggs
4 cups shredded mozzarella, divided
Box of dry lasagna noodles

Directions:
1. For the sauce, brown the italian sausage and add the spaghetti sauce to it.
2. For the cheese mixture, combine 3 cups mozzarella cheese, 2 eggs and container of ricotta cheese.
3. To layer the lasagna, begin with about a cup or so of sauce on the bottom of a 9x13 pan. You'll want enough sauce so that the bottom of the pan is completely coated. Next, add a layer of dry noodles. Top the noodles with a layer of the ricotta mixture followed by more sauce. Repeat the layers: noodles, cheese, sauce. Top with the remaining mozzarella cheese.
4. Refrigerate the lasagna for a few hours to allow the flavors to blend and the noodles to soften. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes, let sit for 10 minutes.
5. Serve to your ravenous eaters and hear them proclaim "This is better than my mom makes!"

December 11th

How we're surviving the blizzard:

Drying our snow-laden clothes

Listening to a favorite Christmas album

Checking items off the to-do list

Aaaaaaand........DONE!

Photographic proof of why my house isn't clean, my tree is undecorated and my children are in yesterday's clothes:

So, yeah, didn't happen...

Remember this? Yeah, didn't happen. Didn't think it would, but I really wanted to try. Oh well.

All is not lost, though. I am still going to try to recapture the last week in pictures and words. Here goes:

December 4th
Got a late start to a birthday party. Tried desperately not to get stressed about it. Managed to succeed pretty well until I got lost on the way there. Showed up an hour late.

Inhale.

Exhale.

The kids had a great time. It was a circus theme, complete with this cake:
Left the circus party to join another party, but discovered on the way that the second party had been cancelled. No loss. We headed home instead. Turned into our alley, drove to our garage and attempted to park in the garage. Got stuck. Backed up and tried again. Got stuck. Back up. STUCK.

Finally, a neighbor took pity on me and spent a good 20 minutes shoveling and pushing to get me freed from my snowy constraints. When I was mobile again, I drove away down the alley and proceeded to get stuck again trying to turn onto the street. Three more men, 20 more minutes, many curse words and a prayer or two were all that was needed to free me a second time.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Spent the rest of the day in the house.

December 5th
With final dress rehearsals breathing down my neck, I skipped great grandma's tree-decorating party and finished up the costumes. Joe and the kids were able to enjoy a few hours of family and evergreens without the costume grinch. They were happy.


December 6th
First of the final dress rehearsals. Still a few costumes/alterations outstanding, but nothing that would impede the show. Elliot and Betsy were great sports again and made it possible (and easy) for me to help. Such good kids.


McDonalds for dinner.


December 7th
Ah... a break from the costume madness. With only a few last-minute alterations to sew, I was able to clean up a lot of the mess in my living room. Still not back to normal, but SO. MUCH. BETTER. (Also worked on a cute present for a little one for the holidays. I promise to show it off soon.)


Made beef tenderloin, mashed potatoes and salad for dinner. I thought I owed my family a nice meal since we've been eating crap for weeks (see December 6th).


December 8th
More dress rehearsal... More costumes... More kids... More broadway...


What more can I say?


December 9th
Today's the day of the first performance. The little thespians stay after school, run through the play a final time, have a pizza party in the cafeteria and then dress for their first performance. I skipped the run through and pizza party. I needed the break but, more importantly, my kids would have needed therapy if I'd forced them to stay at school another day.


In fact, as it turned out, my oldest needed a trip to the principal's office. It seems that all these practices and time at school have been too much for him and he was misbehaving in class. Thankfully, the end is near.


So I arrived at school in time to help the performers with hair and make-up. To put it nicely, the energy was amazing - the kids were literally climbing the walls they were so excited.

Yum!

For lack of a better name, I'm calling these Tella Truffles. I thought about calling them "Hawkeyes" because the recipe was inspired by a recipe for "Buckeyes," but who wants to eat a hawk's eye? Not appetizing. So Tella Truffles it is.

And I know you want to learn how to make them! So here you go. Tell a friend about 'em. Or don't. You may just want them all to yourself.

Tella Truffles
1/4 cup (2 oz) cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 cups Nutella
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
pinch of salt
2 2/3 cups powdered sugar
16 Tbsp (2 sticks) butter, divided, melted and cooled
1/2 bag of pretzels, crumbled

1. Combine cream cheese, Nutella, graham cracker crumbs, salt, powdered sugar and 12 tablespoons of butter together in a large mixing bowl. Stir until well combined.

2. Using whatever device you have on-hand (e.g. portioned scoops, two spoons, your fingers), form the dough into 1" balls and place on cookie sheet lined with parchment or wax paper.

3. Once all of the dough has been "balled," place the cookie sheet into the fridge or freezer until the balls have hardened. If you place them in the freezer, be sure to remove them after 20 minutes so that they don't freeze all the way through.

4. Roll a hardened truffle first in the melted butter and then in the crumbled pretzels. The extra butter is optional, but I find that it helps the pretzels adhere. And the pretzels should be crumbled small enough to adhere to the truffle, but not so small that it's all powder.

They really are delicious and would make a great addition to any cookie platter. Enjoy!

Day Three - December 3rd

After battling Betsy's stomach bug on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, today was thankfully a low-key day. Betsy and I picked up a few costumes that needed alterations, shopped for a few essential groceries and then spent the rest of the day at home. Bliss.

Sam, Ella, Oskar and Kaisja joined Elliot and Betsy after school, tripling the noise but seriously reducing the boredom. We're finally at a stage where playdates are fun for the parents AND the kids.

There's a snow storm on its way. We're expected to get 5-7 inches with a low of 15 degrees and a high of 20. Seems tomorrow will be another low-key day too.

Day Two - December 2nd

The cleaning lady (i.e. me) arrived today. She's been neglecting our house for awhile now, muttering things like "costumes" and "broadway" with this crazed look in her eye. Whatever her excuses, I'm glad she finally put sponge to hardwood and whipped this place into shape. The dust bunnies were beginning to colonize, the bathroom had seceded and a mutiny was being led by the laundry. It was starting to get ugly.

Let's See If I Can Do This...

For a long time now, I have followed along as Ali Edwards documents the month of December in her December Daily projects. Each year, I fantasize about making my own album. I even start out the month taking photos each day and documenting our lives. It never lasts. Some years I get all the way to the 10th, other years I'm lucky if I remember it's December.

This year I'm trying it again. I would say that I. AM. GOING. TO. DO. IT! But, let's be honest, I'm probably not going to capture a month's worth of photos and memories. OR. I might get the photos and journaling done, but never actually make an album. I'm just being honest here. I like to start projects - I'm just not very good at finishing them. Regardless, here goes:

December 1, 2010:
Spent an hour helping in Elliot's classroom and the rest of the day at Kids On Broadway.

Why? I ask myself the same question ALL. THE. TIME! And the simple answer is that I want them to have a sense of community. I want them to grow up with a family (both by choice and by chance) larger than the four of us. I want them to know we support them, their interests and their education. And I want to do the same for the other people in our community.

So we're working our rears off! Both kids were super-troopers at practice. They kept themselves entertained and were in good spirits the whole time. What a blessing it was not to have to worry about them constantly.

It was a long, exhausting day, but good for the spirit and the community!