Apple Tea Ring or Pineapple Tea Ring

This was taken before I frosted it.  Ignore my ugly pan and I know it doesn't look that good, but it really was. 

Dough

1 lb butter
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
5 cups scalded milk
3/4 tlbs of sea salt
1 tbs yeast/ dissolved in 1/2 cup warm water

Filling
1 15 oz crushed pineapple or canned apples
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 Tbs cornstarch
1/2 tsp cinnamon
You can also use granola, craisins, or raisins.

Enough flour to have a sticky dough.  Let rise until doubled.
Scald milk and butter.  Add to mixture.  Add sugar, beaten eggs, and salt.  When all mixed together and yeast mixture.  Roll out dough as for cinnamon rolls.  Cover with filling.  Form into a circle and then pinch ends together.  Cut with scissors 3/4 thru and then turn cuts up on side to form a wreath.  Cook at 350 until golden brown, about 20 mins.  Frost with butter cream frosting.  You may also decorate with almond or maraschino cherries.

You can also just used butter, and cinnamon and sugar.  Then shape your dough into three ropes.  Braid them and then shape them into a candy cane.

Reindeer Christmas Cards

Lindsay made these cute Reindeer cards with her Joy School class. I thought they were so cute we would post a picture of them. They made them with their hand prints and then used their fingerprints to make the border.

Christmas Ornaments

These cute ornaments were made by my children with a little help from one of the cute ladies in our ward. She is the one that had the little Christmas Party for them the other night. We got these ornaments at church on Sunday. Lindsay and Landon were so proud to show us.
The pictures I took of them are not the greatest, but you get the idea.

Snowmen

We live in the desert and because of that, we miss out on snow. We have had a few dustings of snow in the last 7 1/2 years we have lived here, but not a real snow that you can play in and build snowmen with. So, we have to be creative when it comes to Winter fun. I don't miss the scraping of sidewalks, or driving in blizzards, but I do miss playing in the snow.

My kids and I decided to have our own snowmen night.
We started out our night reading this fun book called "Snow Friends." It is about some little animals that build a snowman to play with.


Then we had our snowmen dinner. We found some great recipes in a Taste of Home Test Kitchen cook book. We had Snowman Party Stew, and Cauliflower Snowmen.

Snowman Party Stew
1 pound of ground beef
1 package frozen veges
1 can beef gravy
2 cups mashed potatoes with a small amount of milk
16 whole black peppercorns
1/4 cup ketchup

In a skillet, cook beef until no longer pink. remove 24 peas and one carrot chunk from the stew vegetables and set aside. Add remaining vegetables to beef. Cook until veges are thawed. Add gravy; mix well. Pour into an ungreased 9 in pie plate. Top with eight mashed potato snowmen, using 1 tbsp of potatoes for each head, and 3 tbsp for each body.

Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Cut the reserved carrot into eight strips. Insert one strip into each snowman for a nose, place reserved peas on each for buttons. Add peppercorns for eyes. Drizzle ketchup between head and body to form a scarf.


Cauliflower Snowman
6 cups cauliflower
1/4 cup diced white onion
1/4 cup butter
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
1 cup shredded swiss cheese
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp garlic salt
1/4 tsp white pepper
10 whole ripe olives
1 baby carrot

In large saucepan, cook cauliflower in a small amount of water for 6-7 minutes. Drain.

In medium saucepan saute onion in butter for 2 minutes. Stir in flour until blended. Gradually add milk. Bring to a boil and boil for 2 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in cheese until melted. Add salt, garlic salt, and pepper.

Place half of the cauliflower in a greased 2 1/2 qt baking dish; top with half of the sauce. Repeat. Bake, uncovered at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until bubbly. Add olives for eyes and mouth and carrot for the nose.

After dinner, we had these cute snowman doughnuts we found at the bakery at Walmart. There were lots of cute recipes for snowman treats online though too. You could google snowman treats if you don't find the doughnuts.

After dinner we made these cute ornaments. I found the idea here.

I found the red ornament at the dollar store. I painted my kids hands with white paint. Then I had them carefully place their hands around the ornament. Once the paint dried, I used sharpies and added a few eyes, nose, mouth, buttons, and a scarf to turn their fingers into snowmen. They turned out really cute.

Then after a the kids got out of their warm bath (the painting was kind of messy) we curled up on the couch to watch "Frosty the Snowman."

We had a great night, pretending we played in the snow.

Christmas Thumbprint Art

I saw a great idea here and thought I would try to make the little thumbprint trees with my kids. Then I got a Current Catalog in the mail and saw these cute snowmen and reindeer made out of thumbprints and thought we would try them too.
The kids had a blast and Daddy even went along with it. I made cards. You could also easily cut them out individually and glue them to a mason jar lid. Add some ribbon and make ornaments too.
My pictures aren't the greatest, but you get the idea. We just dipped our thumbs in black ink, and green paint. Then I just drew around it to make the snowmen and reindeer. For the trees I just used markers to draw ornaments and added a gold star on top.

Our little Snowmen Family

Our little Reindeer Family

Our little forest of Christmas Trees

Peppermint Crunch Cookies

1 roll refrigerated sugar cookie dough
1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 cups vanilla baking chips or semisweet chocolate chips
8 round hard peppermint candies crushed
1 tbsp vegetable oil

Heat oven to 350 degrees. In large bowl break up cookie dough. Stir or knead in 1/4 cup flour until well blended. Shape dough into balls. Bake 10-14 minutes or until golden brown. Cool completely.

In small microwavable bowl microwave vanilla chips and 1 tbsp vegetable oil uncovered on Medium for 2-3 minutes, stirring once halfway through until melted. Stir until smooth.

Dip half of each cookie into melted chps mixture, allowing excess to drip off. Place on waxed paper. Sprinkle each with about 1/2 tsp crushed candy. Let stand until set.

Holiday Simmering Potpourri

One of the ladies in my ward shared this recipe with me. You make it and simmer it on the stove all day long or as long as you would like. It makes your house smell so good. It smells like Christmas. She puts it in the fridge overnight and then in the morning puts it back to simmering on low.

1 slice of orange
1 slice of lemon
2 small pine cones (optional)
5 bay leaves
3-4 cinnamon sticks
3 Tbsp cloves

Boil a pot of water. Add fruit slices and other ingredients. Simmer on low on the stove. When you are finished, you may store it in the fridge. May be used over and over and over again.

Homemade Snow Dough

This was in a Family Fun magazine.

1 cup flour
1 cup water
1/2 cup salt
1 T vegetable oil
1/2 tsp cream of tarter
2 T white tempura paint
1 T white or iridescent glitter
a few drops of peppermint extract

Combine all the ingredients except the peppermint extract in a medium size pan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture holds together, about 5 minutes. Remove pan from heat. Turn the play dough onto a waxed paper lined counter to cool, about 15 minutes. If you like, knead in pepperment extract for a festive holiday scent. Store the cooled play dough in a ziploc bd in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.