The ones about the Rothacher Home Archives - Page 98 of 107

Advent {Day 7}: Sprinkle Joy @ Home

December 7, 2011 by Jules Leave a Comment

Have you dug out your Christmas "stuff" yet?

Yep, WE HAVE! We actually sprinkled it around our house the weekend before Thanksgiving. My husband LOVES the Christmas season! {Like a little kids in a candy store} Can you tell by the amount of Christmas stuff we own?

The girls were super excited about decorating! We always love to put on some loud Christmas music to dance to while we break it all out and get in the Christmas mood!

We have several Christmas toys but THIS is easily the most played with one {Veggie Tale Nativity Scene}:

We also like to dress up in Christmas-ness!

We like to trade off between our Christmas CD collection, Air1.com Christmas channel, and our collection of Christmas movies during our marry decorating!

We have sentimental stuff, homemade stuff, just plain cute stuff. Here is how we decided to sprinkle all of it around our house this year:

{Entry}

{Living Room}

{Dinning Room}

{Kitchen}

{Playroom}

Thanks for taking the tour of our winter wonderland!

How are you and your family spending your time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ at Christmas?

Filed Under: Holidays, The ones about the Rothacher Home

Advent {Day 5}: HIPPY Christmas Party

December 5, 2011 by Jules 2 Comments

I don't do solo very well....

Tonight was Maggie's HIPPY Christmas party. I told myself when we started doing this program that one of the reasons we were doing it was for her to have another social outlet. Since we are going to homeschool I feel like I need to make this a priority now.

But...

Matt had an Athletic Banquet tonight. Same time.

Today was terribly rainy, windy, yucky! We'd had our typically terrible Wal-Mart trip, short naps, and attempted to do a little of our HIPPY work while incorporating gift making. Ugg

Needless to say, when it came time to pack the car and head out the door for the party I was less than thrilled about the outing. I hadn't even told Mags about it as to not have to hear questioning from the riddler all day. I so wanted to skip. Sitting there trying to decided if it was 'worth' it I decided not only for my childs social needs but for mine as well, we'd headed out on this evening venture.

When pulling out of the driveway at 4:45 I question my memory..."5 or 5:30?" I pulled in and there on the elementary school sign said 5.
Darn.
I was gonna go grab a hot chocolate.

We loaded the double stroller with a baby and a toddler, diaper bag, cups, camera, gift for our "HIPPY lady" and in we went. {Praising God the rain storm had stopped}

We were early.

It didn't really start until 5:30. I know, some of you are thinking, "Good for you!" and other know exactly the feeling I'm about to tell all you early birds about, "Crap." When a mom of 3 gets somewhere 30 minutes early with minimal support at a new environment, not toddler/baby friendly, and has to wait...........................................................yeah. Things could melt down fast.

I let Mags play with her sweet friend Natally and her big sis who arrived early as well. But the toddler and baby remained in the stroller as long as possible. I fed Jamin his baby food {slowly}, pulled him out of the carseat and propped him up in the stroller seat to eat some cereal. Delaying the "CUP!!!" and "MORE PeeeeeZ!" feasco I gave Izzie some cereal as well while she gazed at the table of snack-like dinner yummies just a few feet away.

And I'm out.

I'd delayed as long as possible. More kids were showing up so I needed Mags to sit with me at the cafeteria table, Izzie was no longer satisfied with the handful of Cheerios and received her cup, and Jamin needed his bottle {my last trick up my sleeve to keep him content in the stroller}. The time now, you ask? 5:25. Actually, if felt like that but I honestly don't know since I was counting babies over and over again like a loon. Mags used the elementary school potty for the 1st time. Izzie's diaper leaked, I changed her in the hallway, and her poor pants were wet the rest of the night. J made it, content with cereal thus far.

5:40- YES! I got kicked off. We got in line {all 4 of us} to grab some lunch meat, diced cheeses, and olives! Headed back to the table where we'd set up camp. Maggie and Izzie sat by me picking at their dinner and chugging their juice cups and J finally got his bottle, shaking milk all over himself, as usual, when he has about an ounce left. I chatted with a few friends and got to relax watching my girls making the normal meal mess all over the table knowing I didn't have to be the one to clean it up.

6ish we went to find Santa and get our picture taken. Surprisingly everyone was okay with that. I think watching all the other kids crawl up there, playing with their friends while waiting and the candy cane at the end were all pieces to the puzzle that is a calm Santa picture! J went straight to him. Izzie didn't want to sit on his lap {she wanted to feel his costume as if he were a doll} but that was probably better {remember wet pants?}. Since Mags saw Izzie didn't want to sit but she knew we all needed to be in the picture she easily let me put her on his knee. Izzie wouldn't stop checking out his suit long enough to turn around and cheese. Oh well.

After grabbing some crafts to take home and loading all of our belongings we made it back in the van by 7ish. Not to shabby. *side note: SCORE! We didn't ruin anyone's Santa belief even though several parents were talking to their children about Santa bringing them gifts and Mags is usually a walking spoiler alert ;o)

How are you Christmas Parties going? Do you have too many? Not enough? Please Share!!!

Filed Under: Holidays, Parenting

Advent {Day 4}: Homemade Gifts

December 4, 2011 by Jules Leave a Comment

Maggie's turn in the kitchen and as a guest blogger!

Hi, my name is Magdalene Reese! I am 3.5 years old and I love playing mamma! Today I'll be showing you how to make homemade playdough. You can share it like we are going to do if you want to. You can even print the labels my mamma made. Let's start with the recipe. It's the easiest one I've seen but then again...this is my 1st time making playdough.

Homemade Playdough

1 cup flour
1 tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon salt
Lots of teaspoons of Water

Directions

Dump flour in a bowl.

Add oil.

Add salt.

Add water until it's doughy consistancy. If it gets too sticky just add some more flour. {I like using a teaspoon or tablespoon to add the water from a larger measuring cup because it feels like I get to put way more ingredients in}

Mix with fork. Using your hands to need the dough gets it more evenly mixed {and it's more fun!}

If you like things that are colorful like me then you might want to add some food coloring to your dough to make it prettier. I was afraid my hands would get stained from the dye so my mommie put plastic bags over my hands and held them on with loose fitting rubber bands.

After I had on my homemade gloves I needed the food coloring into the dough. We added a little water on top of it before needing it and that help spread the color better. We then added a little more flour to make sure it wasn't too sticky and it ended up looking kind of like peppermint! Perfect for Christmas gifts!

We divided up the dough up the dough and then rolled them into little balls to stick down into our jars.

To give all my Sunday school friends a Christmas present we divided the dough into baby food jars and added a playdough poem. We flipped the label upside down, painted with mod podge, then rolled the jar across it {covering the remaining sticky residue from the original label}.

Then we cut tissue paper into little squares and tied them on around the lid with curling ribbon.

Click Playdough Jar Printable for the printable label that fits baby food jars! Hope my friends like'm!

Thanks for letting me tell you about my 1st time making my own playdough!

What kind of homemade gifts to you like to make/receive?

To read more Rothacher's Advent Days click--->
Advent {Day 1}: Cookie Swap
Advent {Day 2}: Dizzie Izzie's
Advent {Day 3}: Giving Christmas Away

Filed Under: Holidays, Parenting Tagged With: HIPPY, how to, Playdough recipe, Printables

Advent {Day 3}: Giving Christmas Away

December 3, 2011 by Jules Leave a Comment

As a family, we have begun the tradition of teaching our children to give Christmas away.

3 years ago we became even more intentional about this when we had our 1st child and it's been growing ever since. I would love to share more with you about the adventure God has taken us on as a family. I'm over at homemakerschallengedotcom telling our vision for giving Christmas away as well as practical ways for your family to join in this teachable season!

Our family is learning that if we really believe that God loved us enough to give His Son to save us then we can be "His hands, His feet, His love"--the entire year--not just during the Christmas season.

~~~

Please share your stories of Advent here or over at homemakerschallengedotcom! I LOVE hearing them!

To read more Rothacher's Advent Days click--->Advent {Day 1}: Cookie Swap and Advent {Day 2}: Dizzie Izzie's

Filed Under: Parenting, The Ones about Homemaker's Challenge Tagged With: Give This Christmas Away, Operation Christmas Child, Samaritan's Purse, shopping, teachable moments

Advent {Day 2}: Dizzie Izzies

December 2, 2011 by Jules Leave a Comment

As part of Advent we are doing MORE baking:

Hi! My name is Isabella Ruth. Some people Call me Izzie Ru, Izziebella, Iz but most call me Izzie. I will be 2 in January!

I have 2 siblings, a sister 18 months older than me and a brother 2 days shy of being 1 year younger. I love my family! Today was a fun day. Maggie, my big sister, went to our Nanna's house for her "Nanna Day". YAY! That means me and Mommie get to hang out. Shortly after Mags left, J went down for a nap and we started our fun.

Today we decided to make cookies for tonight's cookie swap! We searched through lots of recipes and landed on these:
{we had all the ingredients at home and didn't have to go out to the grocery store}

1st picture is where the recipe we used and the 2nd is the look we were going for.
If you know anything about my mom you know...it didn't turn out exactly like we planned ;o)

Holiday Icebox Cookies: {Renamed "Dizzie Izzie's" by my Mommie}

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, plus an extra egg white for "glue"
3 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
5 cups flour, plus more for work surface
2/3 cup milk
1/4 cup cocoa powder
Food coloring, in various colors

~~~~~I SUGGEST READING THE DIRECTIONS IN THEIR ENTIRETY FOR BETTER TURN OUTS THAN US~~~~~

Directions

Using the electric mixer, mix the butter and the sugar until creamy. Add the eggs
{we made the mistake of adding the extra egg white--> DO NOT do that! Save it for later.} and the salt, and mix well.
Beat in milk and vanilla.

Add flour a little at a time, mixing it in until all of it has been incorporated.

Let it mix well. Don't be in a rush. Don't forget to scrap the sides of your bowl to incorporate everything.
Grab a drink. Just watch it until it's well blended.

If you're like me, it will get a little messy. Have a towel nearby for cleaning up counter and you will want to wear an apron as well.

{Since we messed up by adding the egg white we tried to make the recipe less sticky by adding an extra cup of flour. If helped but didn't totally fix it. The reviews at the bottom of the recipe says it turned out sticky for some people who hadn't make our mistake so maybe our attempt at fixing it will help you if your dough is a bit sticky}

*We ended up chilled the dough for a long time! {over night to be exact} while we made our back-up cookies for the cookie swap. Find those here.

While {IF} you are waiting for you dough to thicken up by chilling it you can always take care of those babes or other chores you have.

Catch up on your emailing or blog reading!

Go get a pedicure!

When your dough is ready...

Divide the dough into balls, one for each color. We only colored 1/2 with red. But you can do lots of colors or even for chocolate dough, add cocoa (1/4 cup is enough to flavor half a batch). Mix well with electric mixer. For colored dough, start with 1/4 teaspoon food coloring, and mix well. Add more in tiny amounts for darker colors. Gel-paste coloring can be intense, so add it gradually.
Wrap each ball of dough in its own sheet of plastic wrap; pat flat into a rectangle. Refrigerate at least one hour or until ready to use.
Parchment or waxed paper makes a good work surface. Sprinkle generously with flour, then roll out each piece of dough 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick to make the swirls; you can use thicker layers for the bull's-eyes.

Have no idea what this thing was but they suggest using "The bench scraper". They say it "is a good tool for trimming dough's edges to make them even."

We just rolled our 2 colors out when painted on {yet another} egg white as glue. The egg white, brushed on with a pastry brush, will act as a glue, making the layers stick together.

{Sorry, we didn't picture the next few steps. It got a lil crazy. We needed both hands}

The recipe says, "For center, with your hands, roll chocolate dough into a 1/2- to 1 1/2- inch-thick rod; chill 20 minutes. Place rod on edge of rolled-out dough that's been brushed with egg white.
Roll rod inside sheet of dough. Cut the dough where it meets up. Seal by pinching and pressing gently. Chill 20 minutes, then repeat to add other layers. To decorate, go to step 7, or jump to step 8 for plain.
For spirals, measure and trim two or more colors of dough to same size. Brush on egg white, then stack layers. Brush top with egg white. Starting at one end, roll up the dough.
Smooth and straighten the layers as you roll them so there are no gaps, then gently pinch and press the edge of the roll to seal it. Now the dough is ready to decorate."

{We didn't have a "1/2-1 1/2 inch-thick rod and failed to read about how you should chill {again} before laying}

DON'T HAVE A ROD???

After they were rolled out, we picked up the entire red layer and plopped it on top of the entire white layer, attempting to make them as even as we could.

We then trimmed any edges that didn't have a layer of each color.

Now that we had a double-Decker block, we scooped one end up off the counter using a Rachel Ray scrape shovel tool. We used some flour between the scrape shovel and the dough as we scooped it off the counter as we rolled.

We we had one weird looking roll we chopped it into 3 sections {the middle looking the best as opposed to the sprawling end pieces}

Each roll as wrapped in some parchment paper and frozen for a few hours. While you wait you can of course go read a good book or some relaxing activity you enjoy.

When the dough was set we were so ready to bake and eat them we almost forgot to add some toppings.
The original recipe says, "Add your favorite toppings (try coconut, colored sanding sugar, chopped nuts, or chocolate sprinkles): Spread topping in baking sheet, brush dough with egg white, and roll the log in topping."

but if you haven't learned anything about our baking skills, we don't always follow along well.

We started chopping cookies off the logs using the ____ before rolling in sprinkles and we definitely forgot the egg glue.

After quickly dabbing the edges and the tops of the cookies in sprinkles off of a cookie sheet before chunking them on a sprayed pan and baking for about 10min @ 350'.

Here is our cookie turn out:

Not too shabby.

What did you do with those pieces you cut off at the beginning you ask?

Chop them up!!! Yep, chop them and then bake them for ~10min @ 350' as well. This is the cookie version of chips and dip!

You could hand out little bags of these with a can of frosting to friends or just have a bowl of them out at your party with a bowl of frosting next to it! The more colors you have the more festive!

Other helpful hints to help your cookies turn out better than our from the original recipe are: "Roll each log in parchment or waxed paper; twist the ends of the paper closed. To help the logs keep their round shape, set each in a cardboard paper-towel roll that you have sliced open lengthwise.
To remember what colors you have already used, with crayons, draw the designs onto key tags; tie the tags onto the paper covering the logs. Chill logs until they are solid, about 1 1/2 hours.
Cut 15 inches of dental floss (or double thickness of thread). Let log soften for about 10 minutes. Remove parchment. Wrap floss around log and pull through. Make the slices thin: 1/4 inch or less.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place slices on an ungreased baking sheet (lined with parchment paper). A grown-up should bake the cookies 12 to 15 minutes, until firm but not browned. Let cool on baking sheet for several minutes, then transfer to a wire rack."

~~~