Soup's On!

Here's an idea if you're looking for something to do with your leftover Christmas ham.  We made a delicious split pea soup, and it was so easy to make that I thought I'd share the recipe.  

Ingredients:

1 ham bone 

1 onion 

3 carrotts

2 stalks of celery

1 bag of split peas

1/8 teaspoon marjoram

Salt and Pepper to taste

Chop veggies and combine all ingredients into a pot with 7 cups of water.  Cook on low for 5 hours.

 Remove ham bone, stir, and enjoy!

Christmas Cookies

When I was a little girl I read something very scary about Santa's belly.  It said that since Santa eats cookies at everyone's house on Christmas Eve, it would only be a matter of time before his belly got too big and he wouldn't be able to fit down any chimneys!  I was so worried that I decided we'd give Santa carrots and celery instead.

Since he's still fitting down chimneys that must not be true :) We decided it'd be fun to make some delicious Christmas cookies for his visit this year!  We made yummy Almond Crescent Cookies.  They were so easy to make I thought I would share the recipe that I found on simplyrecipes.com.

Mix 1 cup butter, 2/3 cup sugar, 1tsp almond extract, 1tsp vanilla extract

Stir in 2.5 cups flour, and 1 cup ground almonds
Take a generous tablespoon of the dough, roll it into a ball, and then shape it into a crescent and place it on parchment paper.

Bake at 350°F for 15mins.  When you take them out, sprinkle on some powdered sugar and enjoy!

Weekend Roundup

The weather's been so nice, it hardly feels like the weekend before Christmas.  Hopefully we'll get some snow just in time for a White Christmas!  We had such a busy weekend and it went by way too fast.  Friday was pizza night.  We like to make it on whole wheat pita bread with as many veggies as possible - a somewhat healthier version :)  They're also perfect because on individual pizzas everyone gets to choose their own toppings.

Saturday morning we officially finished up our Christmas shopping.  We also bought a few more Christmas decorations (some places already have their Christmas decorations 40% off - so they were too hard to pass up).  Jack and his Daddy already put them up and they look great!

Our family craft this weekend was making a gingerbread house (this kit was from Michael's for $3).

We felt like watching another Christmas movie, so we rented A Christmas Carol - the new Disney version (it was good, but a little scarier than I expected).

While driving around checking out some of the Christmas Light winners, we were surprised by this house:

It did NOT make the list of winners - they totally should have, we could see their house from Wildcat!

On Sunday we made chili and watched the Broncos lose.  Dan (always the optimist) says "At least the Broncos will have a better draft pick!"  I hope you all had a great weekend - only 5 more days till Christmas!