Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Christmas is Coming!

I took my pre-holiday stroll through the local natural food store yesterday in search of a powdered milk alternative. Ruthie had metioned Better Than Milk Soy Beverage mix in the past so I used this as a starting point. Sure enough, it was on the shelf waiting for me.

I did not have any success looking for powdered creamer in the natural food store but I think I can manage without it. I'll check the regular grocery store tomorrow but I know when I've checked these out in the past, they all have hydrogentated oils in them. I'll be doing test runs shortly.

Jim's on a quest today for the perfect gift for our niece (2) and nephew (not quite 4 months). These little guys have everything kids could want but we think we've nailed down the perfect, non cluttering, parent and child friendly gift. More on that later today.

Rob's class is sharing holiday traditions all this week. On Friday, I'll be joining him and his class to share our tradition of the kids hand making presents for the family. We'll be making rice pudding mix, in bags instead of jars to make it more school bus ride home friendly. I'll post the recipe later today.

The time has come to get our holiday menu in order! With the longer holiday weekend it looks like we'll be entertaining at three different times on three different days. The first order of business is to nail down when the company is coming. The menu will evolve from that. Look for my tentative holiday menu tomorrow morning.

Working more hours has clearly changed the way I operate and not always in a way I like. I'm not a fan of this last minute business. Although I am pleased with the way my fleece projects are coming, I wish I was further along with them. Similarly, I know I can pull together a holiday menu with the foods I have on hand but I don't want to lose the joy of the cooking/creating experience in the process. Scaling back my hours at work has become a bit of an obsession for me.

Friday evening will be the great Christmas project finale at our house. We'll put on A Christmas Story in the background and let it play over and over again (Jim's not a hugefan of this little tradition but the kids and I have come to love it! Sorry Jim). The boys will actually put together their rice pudding mixes, the girls will finish up their crafts and so will I. Thank goodness for the sewing machine! Its a festive bit of mania. Jim's not left out, he's our jack of all trades, filling in wherever he's needed, usually on clean up which is the most important and least appreciated job of all!

UPDATE:
I finally found the rice pudding mix recipe! I've never been able to findground vanilla, so I use vanilla sugar instead or I add 1 tsp of vanilla to the list of ingredients to add.

3 comments:

AnnMarie said...

You can definitely skip the creamer; it's used with powedered milk cocoa recipes assuming people want whole milk in cocoa. I don't. Hate whole milk. And I too looked at creamers at the store and was grossed out by the ingredient list. Made it just fine without it!

Katie said...

Thanks Annmarie, that's great to hear!

Anonymous said...

Oops! Looks like I was a bit late with my previous comment. Well, it seems as though you found the right stuff! Can't wait to hear how the girls like them.