here are some things that have helped make this season so meaningful for us:
- the package we sent to south africa
- the baby and maternity clothes boxed up and waiting to be delivered
- the 8 dozen peanut butter kiss cookies we made and delivered. jaden insisted we knock and run and had so much fun doing it. except the time he knocked beckam down on the porch of one house in an effort to help him getaway faster, sending him into hysterics--they got caught that time.
- making 30 of these mice with my grandma for her to give away
- she let me keep some, too. we tried to leave some for the garbage man and mail lady along with some cookies but I guess the likeness was so good the crows devoured them before they were picked up. beckam hand delivered a plate to the recycle man and the mail lady ended up with see's candy.
- giving these heavenly little goodies to our neighbors: jingle bell rock (dark aloha rocky road w/ macadamia nuts) and peppermint bark. they're made by a chocolatier in the ward we were in last summer. I've enjoyed a few myself.
- reading our 24 days of Christmas most nights with sweet stories, scriptures and hymns
- sending Harry and David's 12 days of Christmas to a special family who's been SO kind and generous to us
- letting Jaden pick out food items that were donated to the Salvation Army through his school to feed the homeless
- buying Christmas cards created by children from St. Jude Children's Hospital at Target
- most of all seeing my children capture the true spirit of the season through charity
5 comments:
I LOVE that you are teaching your children by example to serve. You are amazing when it comes to service.
Will you share you recipes with us? Those mice and snowmen are so cute!
Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas
of course I'll share.
the secret is to use dipping chocolate--it sticks so good! it's not real chocolate actually, it's just chocolate flavored and it's for dipping pretzels and things. The mouse body is a chocolate covered cherry and the head a hershey kiss. so you dip the bottom of the kiss in the chocolate and stick it to the cherry. We used cherry stems for the tails and attached them with the chocolate. After you attach the tail you stick it on an oreo cookie with the top off (makes it look like the mouse is sitting on snow). originally we were just dipping marchinno cherries in chocolate but using the chocolate covered cherries was so much easier. You use slivered almonds for the ears and use dip the bottom of it in the chocolate to make it stick. I recommend spacing the ears apart a little more than we did--it looks more like mouse ears that way. I think ours look like rabbits.
The snowmen were just marshmallows stuck together with the chocolate. We used cake decorating gel for the eyes, nose and buttons and a cherry stem for the pipe. We used a hershey kiss for the hat.
let me know if you have any other questions.
oh and for the eyes we found a sprinkle container that had green sprinkles with the red balls so we picked out the balls for the eyes. again, you just dip the bottom in the chocolate and attach it!
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