He's crawling. Sort of.

Shed a tear with me, please. I'm not ready for this baby to grow up. 

In other news, our Christmas was fantastic.

I think this photo of Stella pretty much sums it up.

Mike is officially in charge of all Christmas shopping for the rest of our lives. He did such a great job. We were all very happy and felt so loved.

We're taking it easy this week. I hope you are, too!

I like to bake cakes.

It gives me an excuse to use a pretty cake stand. And to eat cake. This one is for my friend, Mel. We're having a little party for her tonight and she requested something oreo. Let me tell you a secret: this cake has an oreo truffle filling inside. I'm kind of nervous about it. I hope we don't all die from the richness.

Season's Greetings from Sunny Arizona

Have a very merry Christmas!

Love, Us

We're ready.

 our homey tree, crooked star and all

Our Christmas cards have been put in the mail (phew). Treats have been baked (to be delivered to friends tonight for Family Home Evening). Movies have been watched. Lights have been viewed. And the presents have been wrapped (in some sort of secret code by Mike) and are waiting under the tree.


Is it Christmas yet?

my latest favorite thing

 
Besides my $20 Target skinny jeans (which I used to think only 15 year olds could pull off), I'm really into flowers right now. Aren't we all? I'm pretty sure that someday they will date me, but that's not stopping me from joining the hoopla. Mabel will be wearing this one in our Christmas card photo this weekend. Yep, we haven't even taken our picture yet.

I don't want to talk about it.

Right now at our house. . .

It's a quiet night. Mabel is drawing princesses for Stella before bed. Elliot is sleeping. Oliver is brushing his teeth. And I am wishing I had some frozen yogurt stashed in the freezer.

Grandma Donna

 Grandma Donna with baby Elliot last summer

Mike's grandma, our Grandma Donna, passed away this weekend. If you knew her, you loved her; it's as simple as that. Oh, we will miss her!

It isn't Christmas without gingerbread men.

It seems like every year I try a new recipe for gingerbread men. This year's recipe comes from the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook. It has the best rolling and cutting instructions. (See the super wordy instructions below.) Let me tell you something, fresh out of the oven these are the best things I've ever tasted. Ever. Then they cooled and turned into gingersnaps, which is fine, just not the soft, cakey gingerbread men I was looking for. So if really delicious crispy gingersnappy gingerbread men are your thing, you are going to want to make these. Today.

Or you could skip the baking and just go to Yodipity for gingerbread frozen yogurt. That's fun, too. :)

Gingerbread Men, from Martha & gang
3 1/2 cups flour, plus more for dusting
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/4 teaspoons ginger
1 1/4 teaspoons allspice
1/4 teaspoon cloves
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon grated, peeled fresh ginger
1 large egg
1/4 cup unsulfured molasses

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ground ginger, allspice, and cloves; set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter, both sugars, and fresh ginger on medium speed until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in egg and molasses to combine. With mixer on low speed, gradually add the flour mixture, beating until just incorporated. Turn out the dough onto a clean work surface. Divide in half, and shape into flattened disks; wrap each in plastic. Refrigerate at least 1 hour or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, with racks in the upper and lower thirds. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside. Remove dough from the refrigerator, and let stand until slightly softened. (This will help keep the dough from cracking when rolled. ) On a large piece of parchment paper lightly dusted with flour, roll out dough to about 1/4 inch thick. To prevent sticking while rolling, occasionally run a large offset spatula under dough, and add more flour. Place parchment paper and dough on another baking sheet; freeze until very firm, about 15 minutes.

Remove dough from freezer; working quickly, cute with large cookie cutters. (If the dough begins to soften too much. return to the freezer for a few minutes.) Using a wide metal spatula, transfer cutouts to prepared baking sheets; chill until firm, about 15 minutes.

Bake, rotating sheets halfway through, until cookies are crisp but not darkened, 12 to 15 minutes. Transfer parchment and cookies to a wire rack to cool completely. Cookies can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.

I omitted the fresh ginger because I've never in my life had that on hand, and the cookies were definitely still ginger-y enough without it. The dough was not sticky, and following the freezing and chilling directions made it very easy to work with. I slathered mine in vanilla frosting and chocolate chips, but they are just as good plain.

Some Christmasy Things

Choosing gifts is not one of my talents. Mike is much better at it than I am. So this year he's doing all of the Christmas shopping. I don't know why it has taken us 10 years to come to this arrangement. It's a win-win.

Yesterday I shelled two cups of pecans from our trees with a hammer and my fingernails. It was hard. In the midst it, I decided that maybe the $5 bag of pecans at the grocery store wasn't such a bad deal afterall.

Once I had my pecans ready, I mixed up my first ever batch of granola. I am gifting some of it to my mother for Christmas. The rest I am eating myself.

Christmas is going to be here before I know it. I want to make sure I don't miss a thing. So the following is a list of things I want to do before the big day:

bake and decorate gingerbread cookies (the dough is in the fridge!)
take the kids to see the Temple lights
drink more hot chocolate
take our Christmas card photo (aack!)
make and deliver a holiday treat to our neighbors
read the nativity story in the Bible
watch A Christmas Story and Dan in Real Life (Elf has already been viewed, much to the delight of Mabel and Oliver.)
listen to Nat King Cole's A Cradle in Bethlehem on repeat
attend at least two Christmas parties
wear more red and/or green
get gifts for needy families in our town
pretend it's cold outside

What are you doing to get in the Christmas spirit?

I'm no professional.

Before I started my kitchen, I read every tutorial I could find and watched some how-to videos online. When I had a good idea of how I was going to do it, I went to the Home Depot to price it out. I figured I could do the whole thing for less than $200 (I didn't need to replace my hardware, which is originally from the Home Depot, I think. So that kept the cost down.). I bought my supplies and painted a sample cupboard (I knew I was going to replace the under sink cupboards with a skirt - I am pretending that I have a pretty farmhouse sink - so I used one of those. The skirt is held on with velcro so I can wash it when it gets dirty. And yes, it is totally not baby-proof, I know.). After painting the sample,  I decided that I loved the color (Heavy Cream, by Martha Stewart in Behr high gloss latex. I chose latex for its easy clean-up and low odor. It's definitely a creamy, yellowy white, not stark at all. I matched some dishes I have that looked pretty sitting on the countertop.). I also decided that using a foam roller was a bad idea (It left the finish really bumpy, and I didn't want bumpy.).

Once I got started, I never looked back. I divided my kitchen into 5 sections. I worked on one section a week. I knew that if I tried to do the whole thing at once, I would do a sloppy job. Also, I have four kids (including a little baby). I don't have the kind of time it would require to do it all at once. Breaking it up into manageable sections kept my kitchen from being a disaster, kept my work neater, and kept me from going crazy.

This was my schedule, give or take a day:

On Monday, I removed all of the doors, drawer fronts, knobs, and hinges. I cleaned all of the surfaces with warm soapy water, used a liquid deglosser, lightly sanded, and wiped everything down. Then I caulked the cracks. (I figured that using the deglosser and sanding covered all of my bases. The biggest tip I read was to sand, sand, sand!)

On Tuesday, I did three coats of primer on the backs of the doors and drawers, and on the body of the cabinets. Since my cabinets are less than five years old and in really good shape, I didn't need to paint the inside. That would have been a lot more work.

On Wednesday, I primed the fronts of the doors and drawers.

Thursday was light sanding and wiping down, then two coats of paint on the backs of the doors, drawers, and cabinets, letting each coat dry for at least two hours before applying a second coat.

On Friday I painted the fronts.

I let each section dry for about four days before rehanging.

I used a high gloss paint. If I were to do it again, I might use a flatter finish paint with a glossy polyurethane over the top. High gloss paint is really hard to work with. It shows everything. But it seems to be the most recommended paint for cabinetry, so hopefully it will hold up and not chip too terribly.

Here's what I learned about painting your cabinets yourself: Unless you have lots of experience and use a sprayer, it's probably not going to look like a factory finish. You will see brush strokes and some mistakes. You have to be ok with that. I didn't want to wait until I could afford new cabinets, so I was willing to put up with some imperfections to get the look I wanted now.

a few more tips:

• always paint with the grain of the wood
• after painting one side of a door, wipe the edges with a wet rag to get the drips 
• always have a wet rag nearby
• no matter what anybody tells you, sand!
• three thin coats are better than one thick one
• buy the best brushes you can afford. I went for the "better" ones.

Did I miss anything? What do you think, are you up for it?

p.s. The magic words print is from HomeGoods, and I don't remember the name of the wall color. Sorry!

It's December.

Ah! I'm not ready for it to be December.

Mike brought a Christmas tree home the other night. I guess that means we need to decorate for Christmas. I don't think I'm over Thanksgiving yet. :)

Of all of our decorations, Mabel and Oliver were most excited about putting up our advent calendar. Do you remember it?

This is our third year with it and it's still their favorite thing. I love that. Do you have an advent calendar at your house?

Maybe sometime I can show you how I made mine.

I really love my white kitchen.

Have I mentioned how much I love my white kitchen? Because I do. A lot.

Just for kicks, here's what the kitchen looked like when we first saw our house 5 years ago:

Hello 1978.

The previous owners had already chosen and paid for a new kitchen. All we had to do was raise the ceiling and paint the walls and trim and put in new light fixtures and baseboards.

And then we had this:

Which now looks like this:

More before and after shots:

Guy, it was so brown before.

I have a few tips to share. Do you have any questions?