December 5: Cookies in the oven.
This sounds good, but in reality it was this….

The parchment paper slid right off the cookie sheet along with all my cookies. Hannah watched in horror; the reaction was something like this. Cookie tragedy.

Luckily, there were a couple left that we were able to eat. Very easy recipe we got at MOPS today: 2 mashed bananas, 1 cup oats and a few chocolate chips. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes.

And yes, Hannah is wearing a short-sleeved nightgown in the middle of the afternoon when it’s almost freezing outside. If you currently have small children, you understand this.

December 4: Today I combined some of my favorite kitchen tricks: making up recipes and using the crock pot. With only ingredients from the pantry and freezer!

Slow cooker chicken curry
1 lb boneless skinless chicken breast cut in small bite-sized pieces
1 onion, chopped
1 can petite diced tomatoes, drained
1 can coconut milk
1 Tbs curry powder
salt
2 cups leftover rice

Combine all ingredients except rice in slow cooker. Cook on low for 4-5 hrs. Add rice, stir, and cook for about another hour.

Easy! I had some leftover rice in the freezer that I had made with turmeric and peas for an Indian dish. Perfect for this.
Everyone in the family ate it and liked it. After the first bite, Hannah declared she did not like it. We convinced her to have a bit more, and after about four bites she got used the flavor and there were no more objections. None from Violet, either.

So yes, my kids eat curry. Hannah will not eat a fish stick, but she’ll eat chicken curry.

December 3: My mom ordered a pattern for a super neato advent calendar and spent many hours sewing it for us. It has Jesse tree ornaments and verses. Hannah loved hanging up the ornaments and helping to tell the stories.

My sister sent me a recipe for easy gluten-free cookies since we’re trying to keep Violet off for a while to iron out some digestive issues (but she’s doing better with dairy, woohoo!).

So the cookies turned out well even though I didn’t really use the actual measurements and I added a banana. Someone was trying to sneak them while I was taking a picture.

Then a cookie meltdown ensued. There was wailing and repeated pointing to the cookies while dramatically signing “please.” So we took a cookie meltdown picture.

After dinner, we decorated the Christmas tree. There is the classic kid clump of ornaments in the front center.

Yep, there were shorts worn while decorating the Christmas tree. Texas.

Violet recently learned how to do “cheers” with her cup and thinks it is quite exciting. You can see the gusto.

It was really a pretty quiet day at home, so the Christmas activities do supply some extra photo moments. Now hopefully Violet will break her trend of the last week of getting up four times a night, so I can have some sleep. After I rearrange the ornaments just a bit…

December 2: I washed the couch. A couple months ago, we bought the Ektorp sleeper sofa from Ikea. We had shopped various stores without finding the perfect one, so we got this with the main appeal of washability. I’d never washed a couch before. Turns out, not hard. Back to a nice white sofa, and it felt good to sit down, kind of like that first time you slide into freshly-changed sheets.
If you’re contemplating an Ektorp sofa, leave a comment and I’ll expound further…