Christ is Born Glorify Him!!

A blessed feast to you all!

May the baking begin!

 

Fr. Justin officially kicked off his first round of  cooking for Nativity tonight.  Tomorrow will be filled with services, so he and the girls are doing their "sweets" today.  

How about the gigantic snowman in the background?  My mom and dad got the girls this for the yard.  Somehow, they convinced Papa to let them keep it in the house. 

Getting ready for Christmas

Yesterday we started getting ready for Christmas by decorating the tree.  We try to wait as long as possible to enter into the "festive" part of  Christmas.   This morning the girls and I started wrapping the presents.

Tomorrow we'll decorate the house, the church and begin cooking.  Thursday there are services all day, with Holy Supper Christmas eve.  Christmas morning we will celebrate Liturgy for Nativity and then go to my folks for the day.

The picture is of the girls wrapping gifts.  It's funny because this picture looks so calm and orderly, when in fact there was scotch tape, wrapping paper and ribbon all over the living room!  

Zoe

Little Miss Zoe playing with her babies.

Killer Cornbread

Fr. Justin made an awesome pot of beans tonight.  The southern girl in me wanted some cornbread to eat with the beans.  Alas, most cornbread recipes have eggs and milk.  Ahhh, the internet.  

I found this Vegan Cornbread recipe on recipezaar.com.  It is most excellent.  I didn't mess with subbing out the white flour for whole wheat.  Fr. Justin, the bread man, wasn't around for me to consult with on this matter.  So, essentially it's a flax seed cake.  It was awfully tasty just the way it is!

Vegan Cornbread

recipezaar  recipe #115929

Taken from Cooks Illustrated

2 tablespoons ground flax seeds

6 tablespoons water

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup cornmeal

1/4 cup sugar

4 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon table salt

1 cup soymilk (I used ricemilk and it tasted great)

1/4 cup canola oil

1.  Preheat oven to 425 F

2. Spray 8" square baking dish w/ nonstick cooking spray.

3.  Bring the water to a boil in a small saucepan.

4.  Add the ground flax seed, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer the ground flax see into the water for 3 minutes or until thickened, stirring occasionally.

5.  Set aside.

6.  In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, and salt until well-combined.

7.  Add the ground fax see mixture, soy milk, and canola oil to the flour mixture.

8.  Beat just until smooth (do not overbeat).

9.  Turn into prepared baking pan.  Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

10.  Cool on wire rack 10 minutes;  invert cornbread onto wire rack, then turn right side up and continue to cool until warm, about 10 minutes longer.  

Go and go...

"I'm gonna go and go and go and go, and then just sit here for one little minute...zzzzzzzzzz."

The Nutcracker

The girls and I went on our annual outing to the Nutcracker.  It was a lovely evening despite us all having the sniffles and staying out too late.  

You see, after about and hour Thea had had enough.  It was 8:30p.m. and she was ready to call it a night.  However, we weren't about to leave.  So, every time the principal dancers would come out in all their glory, Thea would say "Not again!"  And of course I think she asked if it was almost over about five times.  

The funny thing is that when we were leaving and the girls were pirouetting their way to the car, Thea exclaimed "Wasn't that wonderful mommy?"  

Note to self:  next year only a matinee performance.