Gingerbread Family

At the same time we made the Heartbreak Cake (see below) John made some gingerbread man cookies from a mix we have had for quite some time. John managed to make them with out any disasters. He even made a few "other" gingerbread figures... see if you can tell what they are!

Heartbreak Cake

A few nights ago I decided John and I needed to do something fun, so I decided we would make our own rendition of Boston Cream Pie. We had a white cake mix, and cool whip for the center, and baking chocolate for the top. Now, don't get ahead of me and decide that this wasn't really a good idea! We mixed up the cake mix and got it in the oven in two heart shaped pans.

I read a tip that you can whip canned frosting in a mixer to make it fluffier and more expansive, so I decided this might work with cool whip too. (again, don't get ahead of me!) To start with, the cool whip was frozen, so I ended up beating around a big hard blob for a while. Finally it melted and broke up enough to be mixed, and I added some red food coloring since we were making a heart shaped cake. Needless to say, cool whip cannot be mixed and made fluffier, but it was a nice shade of pink now.

While I was wrangling the cool whip, John decided he better do some thing to keep from just watching and laughing hysterically, so he worked on melting the chocolate. The cakes finished baking so we took them out and cut the top off one layer to make it flat for the bottom, then put my pink cool whip on it... I must have forgot that it melts in heat... and the pink cool whip mostly ran off the edges or kind of soaked in to the cake =( At that point I started referring to it as the Disaster Cake. We put the top layer of cake on and further squished out the Cream in my supposed Boston Cream Pie. Them we put the chocolate on and the top piece of cake cracked at the top. Just lovely. I was so exhausted from this whole process we didn't even eat any the same night. We did have some the next night, and beside the fact that the only chocolate stuff we had in the house was baking chocolate, and is pretty bitter to eat by itself, the cake actually isn't that bad tasting. I'd imagine we'll finish it and not have to put it in the trash! Many lessons learned.
.

Catching Up

One of my Co-Workers (Teri) got me a fun little growing Christmas tree. It starts out as some sort of cardboard, and you put "Magic Water" on it and it does Magically grow!! It was really amazing, it grew so much it covered up the little red decorations they send with it. My other co-worker, Steve, got one too and immediately said he was going to re-gift his to his nephew... I think he missed out, it was great fun!

1st Anniversary of 29

Just a few days ago, on December 25, John turned 30.

John doesn't seem to be too affected by this seemingly monumental occasion, which is good. You are as young as you feel and act, and judging by John's birthday plans and gifts (paintball with the guys, and PS3 & XBox games) I'd say he's definitely still in his teens! But seriously, John is a great Man, a great Husband, and a great Dad to the fur babies (and I'm sure he will be a great Dad to a real baby someday too). We had dinner tonight to celebrate at The Oasis with friends.

Happy Birthday Dear, I love you!

Is there a Meatball in there?

Friday was a busy day for us. After work (I had to work, John is off the rest of December) we got ready and went to the Downtown Round Rock Holiday festivities with Pinky, Val and her two boys. We had free hotdogs and walked around among the masses of people. We watched a little play, the boys got foam rockets, we saw the horse drawn carriages go by, and we stood by the fire for a bit. It was great fun for us. Then I changed clothes and we came to downtown Austin for my work Christmas party at the Blanton Art Museum . We got there really late, but we had fun mingling with the people that were still there. We stayed until it was over and walked out with a couple of my co-workers. We discovered an "Exhibit" of what looked very much like a bunch of hanging noodles!! We all ran through them and hung and swung on them and just had the best time! What fun... we might need one installed in our back yard!

John Rocks Before Christmas

Last week John got our Christmas decorations down from the attic and put out all the decorations that go inside the house. We were really hoping to get a black tree from Garden Ridge this year, but both stores in Austin are sold out (if you happen to find a 7 foot black tree at a Garden Ridge near you... please let us know!!). Anyway, John did a fabulous job putting everything out. We are going to the Paramount Theatre today to watch It's a Wonderful Life and really kick off the Christmas Season!!

John also Rocked yesterday by spending time with me doing a little Merry Christmas to Myself clothes shopping. It was fun - I found two pairs of shoes, and 5 new shirts (all on sale)! Woo Hoo!

Thanksgiving

We have successfully hosted our first large gathering at our new house! We had 19 people here total for Thanksgiving (plus the 2 dogs and 2 cats, and the rest of the zoo). We did not attempt to cook the turkey this time though... fortunately my Dad cooked one on his grill for us and it was wonderful!! John baked pumpkin and pecan pies and I made a apple/Snickers dish that is very easy, yet very tasty. Everyone brought other dishes and it was all fabulous!! We still have lots of leftovers in our fridge. It was very exciting for us to get to use our new big table. We were specially pleased to have John's family and my family all together. We hadn't all been together since our wedding three years ago! Here are some pics of the feast!