On the 10th Day of Christmas

"Christmas Adam" 

So what's Christmas Adam? My friend Joy told me that her family calls the day before Christmas Eve Christmas Adam. I thought it was hilarious and fitting, so we now call it that :)

So Christmas Adam was on Sunday. Aston slept in which meant that we got to go to the morning church service. Shadow Mountain has an amazing choir and orchestra and Christmas Sunday is one of my favorite Sundays in terms of music. Hallelujah Chorus from Handles Messiah is one of my favorites! I had the privilege to sing it in high school and I just loved it then!

After church, Aston and I came home and he took at nap while my mom and I made cinnamon rolls for Maxwell's 11th day of Christmas gift. We then went to my grandparents house to set her table for Christmas Eve dinner and Aston decided not to take a nap that afternoon. He was all messed up.

That night was Christmas with my dad's house. We had a great time even though Aston didn't last super long.

 My dad's tree and presents just for our little family. Can you say spoiled!

Lets see what I can get into?

Max opened up his 10th day of Christmas gift: the Christmas Adam box. We are hoping that some day when Christmas Eve traditions change,

On the 7th, 8th and 9th Day of Christmas

So plans changed A LOT the later few days of Christmas. On the 7th day of Christmas, we were supposed to go to the San Diego Botanical Gardens but heard it wasn't worth the money, so we changed plans, a few times :) We ended up going on a double date with some old/new friends from out of town and then going to look at lights. I was lame and didn't take any pictures but this is one from the morning when Aston didn't want to wait for his breakfast. 10,000 Cheerios!

On the 8th day of Christmas- 

It was Snowman Day. Plans changed again because the schedule changed with watching my nephew but thats okay. We made Snowman pancakes for breakfast and had a nice day at home together. Aren't they cute?

Aston's pancake.

Maxwell's pancake. Doesn't it look cute with the whip cream as snow?

To make:
Pancake batter
bacon
chocolate chips
mini marshmallows or whip cream

Pour two circles with the head smaller (obviously), right before you flip the pancake over, place the chocolate chips into place. Flip and only finish cooking for a minute so that it doesn't get too dark. Plate, add bacon as scarf and sprinkle marshmallows or squirt whip cream. Both are you cute in there own way!

On the 9th day of Christmas

It was Grinch day! Maxwell works on Saturdays, so we didn't have a ton of time, but we watched the cartoon version of the Grinch and made Grinch punch for lunch! It was a nice treat.

To make Grinch Punch:
Vanilla Ice Cream
Clear soda (we use Hansen's)
Green food coloring

Mix food coloring and soda together, add ice cream and mix until frothy. Serve and enjoy!

Other 12 Days of Christmas Posts:

The Tradition and 2012 Plan

The 1st and 2nd Day of Christmas
On the 3rd Day: Frosty
On the 4th Day: Ice Skating
On the 5th Day: Movie Night and Cookie Topped Hot Cocoa
On the 6th Day of Christmas
On the 7th, 8th and 9th Day of Christmas
On the 10th day of Christmas: Christmas Adam

On the 6th Day of Christmas...

Well that rain is gone and now we have a yucky Santa Anna in Souther California. It is now cold for us. We didn't break 60 degrees yesterday which is very rare for us.

So last night we bundled up again and went to look at lights in Starlight Circle. It's the perfect neighborhood to walk and look at lights. We went early so the food stands weren't up yet but they have a variety of food and drink that each of the homeowners sell: kettle corn, coffee, hot cocoa, candy and chips and other things. It's a nice little touch to the experience. We went before dinner so we missed that part but then we went up to the in-laws house for dinner. It was a nice night and one of my very favorite things to do a Christmas time.

Creep flash eyes but we liked the snowman!

Other 12 Days of Christmas Posts:

The Tradition and 2012 Plan

The 1st and 2nd Day of Christmas
On the 3rd Day: Frosty
On the 4th Day: Ice Skating
On the 5th Day: Movie Night and Cookie Topped Hot Cocoa
On the 6th Day of Christmas
On the 7th, 8th and 9th Day of Christmas
On the 10th day of Christmas: Christmas Adam

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours! I hope you have a blessed day and remember the reason we celebrate this most wonderful season. Jesus became man to give us the best gift of all, forgiveness from our sins and to get to spend Eternity with Him! I LOVE the Christmas Story and especially love this version that Steven Curtis Chapman's daughter did on his Christmas album. Enjoy your day with family and friends! Merry Christmas!

On the 5th Day of Christmas...

Tuesday was a very blustery, rainy day. The plans were to have a Polar Express Day but things changed a bit.

Side note: Things ALWAYS change with 12 days of Christmas. Between weather and life, our plans change often but the most important thing is that we are spending time together as a family and enjoying the season together. I am a planner and love having a plan but I have learned a lot in the last few years about going with the flow when things change.

That day instead, we had a movie night and special treat. We watched Elf, one of my favorites. It was perfect to lighten my spirits this week.

Our special treat was a Chocolate Chip Cookie topped Hot Cocoa. It was delicious! I got my inspiration for this from Iron Chef's Holiday Special. They made a cup of Eggnog with a Gingerbread cookie baked on top. I thought it was brilliant so we experimented and here's how it turned out.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Topped Hot Cocoa or Milk Recipe

• Your Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie dough. We used the recipe on the back of the chocolate chip bag. I halved the recipe because I didn't need a lot of dough.
• Your favorite Hot Cocoa Mix: the number of packets for the number of cups you are making. You could also use just milk if you aren't into a lot of sweet. (Milk and cookie? Yum!)

Preheat your oven according to your recipe. Probably 350 degrees.

Mix up your hot cocoa as you would if you were going to drink it. Heat your water or milk and mix in the packets.

Pour hot cocoa or milk into the cups you will use to bake in. Place onto a cookie sheet.

Mix up your dough and add a little bit more flour to give it a little more substance. I used about 2 tablespoons.

Take a spoonful of dough, roll it in your hand to make a ball and flatten it so that it is slightly larger then the top of the mug.
Place the dough on top of the mug. Any extra dough place on cookie sheet to bake with cookie mugs.

 Bake for about 20 minutes or until the cookie looks done. The middle will be gooy because it had liquid under it. If you want it less doughy, leave in for another couple of minutes. It won't be hard but just a little more cooked.

Pull out and allow to cool for about 5 minutes.

Enjoy!

Other 12 Days of Christmas Posts:

The Tradition and 2012 Plan

The 1st and 2nd Day of Christmas
On the 3rd Day: Frosty
On the 4th Day: Ice Skating
On the 5th Day: Movie Night and Cookie Topped Hot Cocoa
On the 6th Day of Christmas
On the 7th, 8th and 9th Day of Christmas
On the 10th day of Christmas: Christmas Adam

On the 4th Day of Christmas

The 4th day of Christmas was an icy day...It rained in the morning, so we were afraid our plans would get rearranged but the sun came out! Hooray! We went Ice Skating up a Viejas, an outdoor outlet mall. It was cold that night but we bundled up and had a great time! My mother-in-law Betty came with us so that we could skate together and then switched so she could skate too!

Of course I forgot my good camera, but thank goodness for cellphone camera's that are half decent.

The 3 of us!

 My hubby is great!

 Aston and Grandma Betty watching us skate :)

 Betty and I traded places, she went to skate and I sat with the Hippo who just wanted to watch and eat snacks.

Look at those blue eye!

 Waving at daddy and grandma

My little buddy! I just love him!

Daddy skating!

Other 12 Days of Christmas Posts:

The Tradition and 2012 Plan

The 1st and 2nd Day of Christmas
On the 3rd Day: Frosty
On the 4th Day: Ice Skating
On the 5th Day: Movie Night and Cookie Topped Hot Cocoa
On the 6th Day of Christmas
On the 7th, 8th and 9th Day of Christmas
On the 10th day of Christmas: Christmas Adam

On the 3rd Day of Christmas...

On the 3rd Day of Christmas

We had a Frosty Day. After Maxwell got home from work/church, we began our Frosty festivities. I had made marshmallows for gifts and we packaged those. While we packaged them, we had hot cocoa with fresh marshmallows because it was FREEZING in our house. We made Snowman Pizza for dinner, read the Frosty The Snowman book and watched the movie. It was a fun, frosty day!

Making Chocolate Marshmallows

Warming up!

 Chocolate and Vanilla Marshmallows ready to be packaged!

Snowman Pizza Recipe

For this pizza, you can use store bought dough or your favorite pizza dough but this is my grandma Ann's recipe and Maxwell's favorite so it's what we used.

2 Cups flour, plus about 4 1/2 cups will be added later

2 packages of yeast

2 cups warm water

2 eggs

1/2 cup melted butter

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup sugar

Place all the ingredients into your Kitchen Aid or a bowl. If using a Kitchen Aid, use your paddle attachment to mix ingredients, once the ingredients come together, trade the paddle attachment for the dough hook. On a lower speed, add about 1/2 cup of flour to the mixture at a time until it forms a nice ball of dough. If it has enough flour in it, it will come together and form a bowl. Remove bowl from Kitchen Aid and rub the edges of the bowl and the top of the dough with butter or olive oil. Place a towel on top of the bowl with the dough and place in a warm spot to rise for about an hour.

If you are using a spoon, mix the ingredients, add flour in batches and knead well. It should be a soft dough that isn't too sticky.

Once the dough is risen, break dough into three portions. I used my hands to make the round shape and placed them on a cookie sheet covered with olive oil so that it doesn't stick.

Preheat over to 450 degrees and cook for 15 minutes.

Toppings:

Sauce: we used Newman's Own Tomato Sauce but you could do a white sauce if you would like to.

Favorite toppings: Ours is pineapple and ham

Motzerella cheese

Whole olives cut in half

1 mini carrot cut to make a nose

After dinner and bath, we watched Frosty the Snowman

 Aston still has a short attention span with movies especially, so he started to read instead :)

Other 12 Days of Christmas Posts:

The Tradition and 2012 Plan

The 1st and 2nd Day of Christmas
On the 3rd Day: Frosty
On the 4th Day: Ice Skating
On the 5th Day: Movie Night and Cookie Topped Hot Cocoa
On the 6th Day of Christmas
On the 7th, 8th and 9th Day of Christmas
On the 10th day of Christmas: Christmas Adam

Link parties: Six Sister Stuff

On the 1st and 2nd Day of Christmas

Friday was the 1st Day of Christmas in our house. We spend the 12 days leading up to Christmas doing intentional Christmasy activities as a family.

I always have a plan in place, always hoping to get to everything, but life happens. The important part about these 12 days is that we spend the time we have together.

Friday was the 1st day of Christmas for us. We were rocked by the news and it kind of took the wind out of our sails. Then it started in rain.

We had plan to go to a little Christmas in the Village (in La Mesa, CA) but when it began to rain, we decided to make other plans. So we went and had a quick dinner at a local italian restaurant, then went to our local Target to let Aston roam. He was antsy from being stuck inside for two days of rain. Aston has a blast throwing balls down the isles and pushing a wagon around.

Even though it wasn't what we had planned, it was a great time together anyways.

2nd Day of Christmas

Yesterday was the 2nd day of Christmas. Maxwell works the evenings on Saturdays, so we did out activities before he went to work.

Yesterday was Rudolph day. After we returned home from swim lessons, we made Rudolph pancakes. I saw the idea of Pinterest (of course) and followed the link to Kitchen Fun with My 3 Sons. I used a few different ingredients: instead of a strawberry, we used an ice cream sundae cherry. It was perfect because it really does glow. We also used real bacon instead of turkey because that is what we like.

Later that day we watched Rudolph and read the Rudolph book I have. We had fun and as Aston gets older, we will add some more Rudolph activities to the day. 

Other 12 Days of Christmas Posts:

The Tradition and 2012 Plan

On the 3rd Day: Frosty