Why the long pause?

Tomorrow will be one month since I last blogged.  Whoa!  Where has the last month gone, you ask?  Moving and sickness.  While we were in Chicago for Christmas, David was offered a job.  It's a job thats been open to him since he separated from the army.  David has said for quite some time that he didn't want to be a superisor for the police department.  He didn't have the desire to go up with the police department.  He had atually applied for a couple of jobs while I was pregnant with Riley.  So it wasn't a super shock to me when he started to serisouly consider the Chicago job offer.  We used the long drive home to talk about whether or not we wanted to seriously pursue this option.  

We decided to go for it.  Many different factors are involved in why we said yes but ultimately we both feel like we can offer more to our kids in Chicago than we were able to in Fayetteville.  David believed that him and I could have more of what we want, i.e kids.  So we decided to take the leap.  

I kept quite about it for many reasons.  For one, we weren't sure about anything until 2 weeks before we left.  The other reason: I didn't want my mom to find out over the internet.  Ya see, I haven't spoken to my mom since Christmas day.  She said some very hurtful things to me, fueled by anger and alcohol.  I don't like the thought of being her punching bag, and she has not taken responsibility for what she did.  

 Here's some photo's I took making cookies for Hannah's last day at school, 3 days before we left.  I really didn't think about all my kitchen stuffed being packed up when I signed up to do these.  So this simmer pot was for dry ingredients.

This quart plastic freezer container was for wet ingredients.  

Here's my concoction all mixed together.  

The final product: Cake Batter Pudding Cookies.  They tasted FANTASTIC!!!  

I think I got the award for Most Creative Baking award.  

Friday night, two days before we left. David had packed all his clothing and bedding.  So here he is, in ranger panties with Hannah's princess pillow, getting ready for bed.  

Saturday night with even less!  Pizza and The Wonder Years on the floor.  

Next:Moving Day.  to be continued......

Holiday Baking: Wrap Up

I threw both of these together the day we left for Chicago.  I mean, we had to have cookies to leave out for Santa.!  I've had mint chocolate chips in the cabinet for awhile now, waiting for a good recipe to come along.  This one caught my eye:

Mint Chooclate Bailey Chippers

They were easy to throw together and I didn't make a mess of every bowl in my kitchen.  

Gingerbread

I stumbled across a recipe for gingerbread and decided I had to have some.  I just couldn't stop thinking about gingerbread, even though it's not something I'm crazy about.  

Talk about easy!  

Gingerbread going in the Oven.

Unfortunately, I forgot to snap a photo of the finished gingerbread.  But it was SO GOOD!  It was fluffy and perfectly seasoned.  The ginger was NOT overpowering, which I think is really easy to do with ginger.  You could really taste the molasses and cinnamon as well.  Matter of fact, I think I'll make another one this week.  Talking about it so much has created another craving! 

These mint chocolate chippers were FANTASTIC.  If you like mint chocolate, then you need to make these.  I was skeptical about how much of the mint chocolate you would be able to taste, outside of eating an actual chip but you could smell the mint chocolate when you lifted the lid to this cookie tin.  The taste was very minty chocolate.  It had to be the Bailey's .  

Grandma Cernock's Egg Nog Recipe

The day we got there, David and Grandma decided to make egg nog for the following day.  

Following Grandma's instruction.  

They must've been searching for something.  

She's got a careful watch over David.  

David made a giant mess filling the jars. ; )  But he had a good time in the kitchen with his grandma.  This is the kind of thing that draws David to his grandma's house.  

The egg nog was fantastic.  I like egg nog.  Partly because it's a seasonal thing, and I only enjoy it during the Christmas season.  However, beating the yolks and whites is so key in a good egg nog recipe.  Not a problem for Grandma, who has a nice counter top mixer.  This will be my next kitchen appliance!  

Baker's Delight

This Christmas, I got crafty.  I made almost every gift I gave.  I made some instant coffee blends, some chocolately soup blends, some seasoning blends, and some ornaments.  I also did goodie bags with cookies homemade bread that I gave to our trash collectors and mailman.  I wanted to give something to the paper boy, but I don't know how to get it to him since our paper is delivered sometime before 600.  I let Hannah help as much as possible, as you can see with these photo's.  This particular cookie, chocolate peppermint swirl, is my new favorite holiday cookie.  They were so yummy!

Huh Mommie

I got it mommie!

Christmas cutouts

The finished product