Church was cancelled yesterday because of the "blizzard of 09"
It was supposed to start around 11 in the afternoon on Saturday & go til around noon on Sunday.
We hurried home from NYC Saturday so we wouldn't be caught in it.
When we got home we waited... and waited... and waited for it to start.
Noon... no snow.
1:00... no snow.
2:00... no snow.
3:00... no snow.
you get the idea.
9:00 FINALLY it started snowing & it started snowing HARD.
I think we ended up getting around 10-12".
I thought we would get more... esp since we got a phone call from Homeland Security warning us about this storm & advising us on how to "stay safe" during it... seriously!
Come Sunday morning I was debating... get out of bed & start dressing all 4 kids & chance getting the phone call of cancellation right when i get the last shoe on?
Or just stay in bed & HOPE that the call comes before it is too late to try & make it somewhat on time if the call doesn't come.
Sure enough, at the very last second I could possibly feel good about delaying... I got an email... "Church is cancelled. Have a nice day with your family."
So i decided we would do something we NEVER do...
BAKE
especially as a family.
I don't know why I hate baking.
I don't know why i suck at it. And i truly mean SUCK in all it's glory at it!
I do not have a "kitchen doing stuff" bone in my body.
I have tried... I do try... I want to be successful...
I just suck at it!
No word says it better!
And today was no different.
Ask Steve... I honestly went in with a positive attitude.
I allowed the kids to help.
We were going to have a good time.
I even had the iPods & radios in the kitchen all set to 99.9 (the Christmas music station) so we could pretend we were listening to a fancy schmancy surround sound system as we worked!
Disaster #1:
The caramel corn.
For some reason the caramel is just not the right consistency this year.
I consider the caramel corn to be ONE thing i can do right.
This is the 2nd time this Christmas I have made it & the 2nd time it did NOT turn out right.
It is also the 2nd thermometer I have had because i dropped the 1st in to the batch of caramel as it was boiling.
Also, i needed my large bowl to do the next batch, so i poured the hot, gooey corn out onto wax paper.
Now, i thought the whole purpose of wax paper was so things WOULDN'T stick to it.
WRONG.
After it cooled i went to take it off & it was all STUCK to it.
So i got to spend the next 1/2 hour, peeling little bits of stuck wax paper off the bottom layer of the caramel corn.
The kids wanted to ice sugar cookies.
So bring on disaster #2.
I KNEW me making sugar cookies & trying to ice them would be a disaster so i TRIED to avoid as many problems as possible.
So i bought the premade dough.
Simple, right?
NO!
Rolling it out...
Molly ruined 1 batch.
The phone rang, I went to answer it.
At the time there was NO ONE in the kitchen.
I came back in, all 3 kids were in the kitchen, Molly on the counter.
She had pounded a good inch of flour onto the top of the dough (& her legs)... she use about 1/2 a bag of flour. I tried to save it, but no luck!
Into the garbage that went!
Max wanted to help.
At first i thought he was doing a good job at cutting out circles...
Then he just started doing these random circles everywhere.
We went from baking to an art project in the blink of an eye.
My gingerbread boys came out of the oven looking like the marshmallow guy from Ghostbusters.
And Ben put his fingers in them right as they came out of the oven.
Max when he WAS being helpful!
We never did get around to icing them.
I forgot to buy icing & i wasn't about to look up a recipe for icing at attempt to make my own.
NO WAY!
Disaster #3:
And blogger didn't upload the photo.
Max found these cute bags he wanted to give all of his teachers & "teacher friends" at school.
So we were going to fill them with "turtles".
So i spent 1/2 an hour with the kids unrolling bags & bags of Rollos.
Then we made trays & trays of the stupid things.
Just as the last tray came out I thought "hummm, let me read the back of the pretzel bag just to make sure there aren't any "nut" ingredients in these".
We are a nut free school.
And sure enough... right there... "This product is manufactured in a plant with peanut butter".
Well holy crap!
Now what am i going to do with 10 dozen turtles... AND no treats for the teachers... AND Max is beyond ticked off cause he has nothing for his little bags!
Success #1:
But i did have a success.
Every year i make reindeer food for the kids.
Ben finally outgrew it this year.
Got the tag template online & just added my own details.
(The kid font is Ben's actual handwriting from 1st grade, i had made into a computer font)
If i could only be 1/2 as successful with flour & water as i were with paper & scissors =)
